Bright Gnome, Big City
by Aunty Proton
Summary: OwlDance and Ancasta meet in the middle of a Horde terrorist attack. He's a Night Elf "ne'er do well", she's a bright young Gnome mage with dreams of exploring the world. Best friends, guildmates, brother and sister til the end.
1. Chapter 1

Part 1

She knew now why her parents and even Old Wolfhammer hadn't been enthusiastic about her leaving home. They'd tried to tell her it would be overwhelming, but of course she hadn't listened. Announcing to the entire house full of people that not only was Mount Ratchet's golden daughter accepted as apprentice to Master Wolfhammer but that she was determined to leave Dun Morogh and explore the world perhaps was not the best way to start her career as a mage. Up til that moment, it had been such a happy, boisterous birthday party. It ended with worry lines on her parents' faces and the Dwarves giving her solemn looks.

But Gnomes were not meant to sit still. The Dwarves might be content to dig into their mountains and hold fast against storm and ice and fire, but Gnomes were meant to explore and seek out new worlds and peoples. Her grandfather, Light bless him, had understood and encouraged her to seek out every nook and cranny of Mount Ratchet's mountainous, icy crags. And usually was the one following behind, just out of sight, to pull her out of trouble with a well-thrown Fireball. Or drop a rope down when she couldn't climb back up or down from wherever she'd managed to land.

But this... this was something she didn't think even her old Master could have prepared her for.

She'd seen other races in Ironforge, of course. They came all the time to Master Wolfhammer's Magery Shop and Mistress Elise's shop where Ancasta was often on errands for her Master. Mostly Humans, a few Draenei, all just passing through and looking for some spell they'd heard of out of Dwarven magery. They were all mages of one sort or another, so there was a familiarity there even if they were as exotic as a blue moon. But in Mistress Elise's case, there were others. For Mistress Elise sold glyph inscriptions of very fine quality, and it seemed the entire Known Lands came to her wanting to buy them. Or tried to beat them out of her, in the case of the Horde. Ancasta generally hid in a cupboard until she heard the spellcasting stop and a solid thud herald Mistress Elise's victory. Most times, the Ironforge Guard arrived too late to provide any help short of fetching a broom and dustpan to deal with the remains.

But now -- this -- there was no Grandfather here to yank her away from the wolves. Light keep his soul.

Walls of houses rose up around her, and over them walls of white stone. Not like Ironforge's expansive, comparatively airy caverns, but close packed so that the houses had no more than a handspan between them. Dwarven fires burned here and there, filling the air with stinging smoke. She could hear voices speaking in other languages, the clank of hammers. She could see two merchants through the haze not a hundred yards away, with two Draenei warriors and a Night Elf examining the blades and daggers. There was a crane lifting a load of logs on the corner, and five of her own people on the partially-constructed third floor of a tavernhouse. There was a loud, startling growl to her left and she jumped and whirled to see a giant cat easily twenty times her size glaring down at her with cold yellow eyes.

"You're in the way," said a sneering voice above the cat's head. She jerked her eyes up and saw a warrior, a Human by the size, scowling down at her from the cat's back.

"Pardon, sir," she said nervously, and ducked back into the shadow of the tram entranceway.

Trying to calm her pounding heart, she took serveral deep breaths. She fumbled her pack from her back and rummaged inside for the map her old Master had given her.

_"If you're determined to go gallivanting off into the unknown,"_ Master Wolfhammer had said, _"Ye'll do better to go to Stormwind first. Conquer that, and ye'll be on yer way. 'Tis safe enough, if ye keep yer head." _

She wondered if this was one of Master's jokes, for this place was anything but safe.

All the better.

Stormwind looked to have been constructed by a committee. The route Master Wolfhammer had lined out on his map twisted and turned in a fashion so illogical it made her head spin.

She resolved to take it one district at a time and first was one marked "Old Town". She came to the tunnelgate between the two districts and squeaked in starlement as two giant horses suddenly burst around the corner and thudered toward her, two Human wariors in fine plate armor atop them. She flattened herself against the wall of the tunnel until they passed, then trotted quickly through the gate and ducked to the side to look at the map in her hand again.

"Turn left. Go over bridge, turn left again, and through the tunnelgate into Old Town. 'Don't linger here, shady characters,' " she read in her Master's spidery Dwarvish runes.

It certainly felt ominous, for the streets in Old Town were scarcely wide enough for a donkey cart to pass through, the cobblestones worn and grimy and the houses obviously older and beginning to fall to decay. She smelled a moldy taint to the air, and felt eyes peering down at her from the second floor windows as she passed. There were lines of washing drying high overhead, strung between the buildings. Rats chittered in the sewerage drains as she passed. Even narrower alleyways opened between buildings every so often, giving brief glimpses into tiny shadowed courtyards full of weeds. She passed an archer's shop, which seemed to be the only trade concern before she reached the next tunnelgate.

"Over bridge, through tunnelgate, turn left, then right at the next corner," she read. She stopped, her ears registering the sound of a loud rumbling growl approaching, and flattened herself against the tunnel wall again.

This time another gigantic cat with a Draenei in fantastic robes atop its back thundered past and across the canal bridge. In its wake, two tall Human warriors in mail armor and bright tabards followed.

"It's getting out of hand, Bayern," one said to the other. "So far it's been the odd incursion, but -- "

"Odd incursion? Near daily sudden and random attacks are 'odd incursions'? We have our share of passing maniacs -- what city of this size doesn't? This has gone past that. I say this has long since shown a pattern. These attacks are terrorist actions."

Ancasta gulped and hurried on.

She turned at the corner and looked up, and gasped. For the Trade District square was full of people and beasts, and it was pure chaos. She had no idea how she was going to get through it without getting trampled. The giant cats, horses, giant ophilants, all with riders. Great owls perched high in the brances of the tree at the center of the square. Humans, Night Elves, Draenei, Dwarves, blades and bows and staves of fine workmanship at every hip or carried across the back. Those who were clearly mages in fine and often fantastically figured robes. Beyond the tree, one great stone archway stood open and the sounds of voices calling auction prices. The signs over the doors of two other nearby buildings showed the signs of armor and weapons, and a steady stream of folk went in and out of those doors.

She gulped again and saw that most of those present seemed to be in front of the tree at the middle of the square. Taking a look at her map again, she saw she was to go straight across and turn right at the corner, then through another tunnelgate. If she hurried and stuck to the wall of the building to the left --

She clutched her staff and started to trot toward the chaos.

She had almost made it past the throng when the unholy, distorted shriek of a horse sliced through the air behind her. And then the sounds of cries of alarm, and the sounds of magic and blades and the pounding of hooves and the roar of the giant cats.

Ancasta reached the shelter of a small pile of crates at the side of the street and peered out of her hiding place, her heart in her throat.

Where a moment ago there had been the chaos of a lively crowd at peace, now it seemed as if the last battle of the Twilight of the Gods was taking place not thirty feet from where Ancasta hid. At the center, a demonic horse-shaped _thing _reared and spun, lashing out with burning hooves. On its back, a terrifying vision of red-glowing, spiked black armor, the helm's eye slits only gouts of flame, the black longsword in its hand whirling while the other hand flung balls of the most powerful magic Ancasta had ever seen. Most terrifying of all, with every swipe of the blade or every ball of magic flung, another of the folk now fighting against it fell dead to the cobbles. Others were trying to flee only to be caught by the spells howled by the black warrior's screeching voice. Warriors were now boiling out of the auction house and poured from a side path just ahead of Ancasta's hiding place, flinging spells, daggers, and racing forward drawing axes or swords.

Surely, _surely_, the black warrior would be defeated! By sheer numbers if naught else! But the black horse and its black rider whirled and spun and howled and killed, endlessly, senselessly, for what seemed in Ancasta's fear to last for hours.

Panicked, she scrambled and climbed out of her hiding place in the crates and ran for the open door of an inn a few yards away.

Hands snatched her up and swung her up against an invisible body. She struggled against the hold as long hair brushed across her face and big, long-fingered, white hands suddenly faded into view around her middle.

She looked up, still struggling, to see a white face, glowing silvery eyes, and long tapered ears bobbing through ebony hair as the Night Elf ran with her clasped against his chest.

He tucked her up against his shoulder with one arm and used the other to shove other people ahead of him as he ran.

"Go! Go! Quickly! Get behind doors! Quickly! Out of sight!" he yelled as he ran on past a few more open doors and windows. Then he swerved and ducked into another tunnelgate and freed one hand to sketch a sigil in the air. In a moment he was not only running but the world around them blurred as they all but flew across another bridge and swerved to the right, down the street beside the canal, and swerved at last into a dim alleyway. At last, he slowed and came to a stop.

Ancasta wondered if her heart would ever quit pounding so loudly she could hear her blood roaring in her ears.

The Night Elf still clutched her, panting from his panicked run.

"What -- what was that thing?" Ancasta squeaked.

The Night Elf tried to grin then shook his head. "Would you believe -- the end of the world?"

Ancasta nodded. "I would. I believe it."

He nodded and very carefully set her down on a nearby up-ended barrel. She saw his big, elegant hands were shaking badly. He put a hand against the brick wall of the alley and ran the other hand over his face.

Ancasta gulped. "I -- I just came here. To Stormwind. I just got here, not a half candlemark ago."

He glanced at her, his glowing silver eyes flickering over her. "From Ironforge?"

Ancasta nodded, speechless.

He huffed a humorless laugh. "Not the best of welcomes." He straightened his fine gray shirt and purple leather vest, ran a hand back through his flowing black hair. It was then she saw the long daggers at his belt and the throwing knives in their sheath on his leg.

"Is nowhere and no one safe from that thing? Who is he? _What _is he?" Ancasta asked, her voice rising in fear.

"No one is safe. If you're caught out when they appear, you die. If you try to fight, you die. It doesn't matter if you are a master blademan or master mage, you die as fast as the cheese merchant and the milkmaid. The only way to escape is to get out of sight," he said quietly. "As to what they are, they're called the Death Knights. Most we've seen have been of the Horde, of the Blood Elvenkin. They have no reason to the attacks. They appear, they kill, they go on to the next place and kill again. They'll go on to Goldshire from here, then the Abbey or Westfall or Redridge. They kill everyone in their path."

"Can't anyone stop them?" Ancasta asked.

He huffed another weary laugh and shook his head. "The King is powerless. The City Guard fall like blades of grass in the teeth of a storm."

Ancasta dropped her head in her hands and felt tears sting her eyes. Suddenly her warm little bed in Old Wolfhammer's attic seemed not only a lifetime away but the most wonderful thing in the world.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

His name was OwlDance, Ancasta discovered. He was what her mother would have called a "makework" and her Master would have called a "ne'er do well."

"Leatherwork, mostly," he conceded as he showed her the way to the Mage Quarter. "Though I cook, and some say I'm good at it. I trade a great deal in such, and anything else I can find. I'm part of a guild, though to hear our leader name us we're a bunch of rabid Grellkin. I hunt for meat and skins. And I wander sometimes, or go home to Teldrassil to see friends or to Auberdine to fish for crabs for cooking."

And he seemed to know every turning of the street and every alleyway they passed, called out greetings to merchants through the doors of their shops all along the way.

She said as much and he smiled a little.

"I've been here quite a while," he explained. "But see -- those banners? The purple with the book, that is the sign of the mages. Who is it you're supposed to speak to?"

"Mistress SunFox, she's an alchemist teacher," Ancasta answered. "And I must find an inn, or some other place to stay."

"Here in the mage quarter that might get expensive," OwlDance said. "Folk come from quite a long way to study here, and the tavernkeepers and innkeepers are well aware of it. But we'll talk to the alchemist first. She may include room and board in the training."

OwlDance looked around as he heard the soft padding of small feet on the slate stones of the alchemist's shop. Through the open door behind him, Ancasta came out into the bright sunlight.

"She can't take me on even as a student," Ancasta said softly. "She has four already, and no time for more."

OwlDance turned and sheathed the dagger he was sharpening, slid the sharpening stone into it's pouch on his belt. "Right. One more place to try here in the Mage Quarter."

"But -- my Master said -- "

"There are other mages and alchemists in this city," Owl said. "And outside of it."

Ancasta blinked up at him and wrung her hands on her staff's leather bindings. "But -- how will I know if they are reputable? What if they are not proper teachers? I can't just go off learning such from just _anybody_!"

Owl blinked his glowing eyes at her. "No offense, but it's a big world and your old Master can't know every last alchemist or mage. How are you to learn the magics and potions peculiar to a place if you don't learn them from the mages who live there? Is your idea of learning so limited?"

Ancasta deflated at that and dropped to sit on the stone stair beside him. "No. It's just -- this was the path my Master laid out for me. He only let me leave Ironforge if I agreed to go directly to Mistress SunFox. And now -- I guess I'll have to go back. I don't know what to do, where I'll be staying, how I'll keep myself."

Owl smiled a little at that. "Then it's high time you learned. Come on. I have a friend I think can solve at least one of your problems."

"How does it keep from falling?" Ancasta asked, peering up at the spiraling stone rampway, hanging without support as it snaked up the side of the Wizard's Sanctum.

"At a guess -- magic?" Owl said innocently.

"You Elves are so literal," Ancasta said sweetly.

He chuckled and started off again across the emerald grass toward the ramp's foot.

Ancasta stared up at the stone and wood construction, and felt the power the place radiated. There were powerful magics infusing even the ground around the tower, the close-packed buildings of an inn and several shops clustered around it, the stones of the walkway. The entire Mage Quarter hummed from the power this building put out. Owl turned at the foot of the ramp and waited for her. Ancasta gulped and padded over the grass to join him.

"You're sure they won't mind?" Ancasta asked nervously as they started up.

"The Academy was almost wiped out during the last war. Each new student they accept is another step in their revival," Owl said. "And like I said, I have a friend here."

The stone rampway led into an open archway in the tower proper, and Ancasta flattened herself against the inside wall as the first thing she saw was a shimmering mass of greenish power not twenty feet inside the door.

"Don't worry. You could walk right through it and it wouldn't hurt you," Owl said. "It's a portal to the Blasted Lands. It won't take you in if you don't have the proper spell."

Ancasta, eyes wide, nodded silently and followed him up another stone ramp that wound up the inner wall of the tower. "And they just leave it right out in the open like that? In the middle of their mage school? Doesn't that put the mages in danger?"

Owl chuckled. "No. And you'll see why in a minute or two."

They came out into what looked to be the tower's only room. Large, round, high-ceilinged, with tables and many shelves of books. Only one man sat at a table near to a large round arcane portal standing free before a wall of the tower.

Owl went to speak to him and Ancasta wandered over to a nearby table. It was a Human sized table and she climbed up on a chair to be able to see the books. Amidst the books, a crystal globe sat on a silver tripod stand. Within the globe, golden light swirled and sent beams of yellow shining through in random patterns. Ancasta hitched herself up onto the table and moved a couple of the books out of the way to scoot closer to the globe. She looked down into the crystal and felt a jolt run through her body.

Suddenly she was not in the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences, but outside the tower, floating high above the trees of the Mage Quarter. She saw the roofs of the buildings, the stained glass windows of the tower itself, and then as she flew in a wide arc further into Stormwind itself. Tunnelgates, the spires of the castle, the battlement walls, the harbor, the lazy clouds high above the waves, the ships at the docks. Then she swung again in her flight and she was racing toward the tower again.

Another jolt, and she was back in the tower room, sitting on the table, the glowing sphere of crystal beside her.

"Ancasta?"

She blinked and looked around. The human mage who kept this part of the tower stood beside OwlDance in front of her. "Yes sir," she responded automatically, still trying to shake off the disorientation of her abrupt mental "flight" around Stormwind.

The Human mage chuckled. "Nevermind, OwlDance. I've no need to test her. The globe doesn't respond to those without magic. I'll be back in a moment with Jennea."

"Thank you, Master," Owl said with a reverant nod.

Ancasta watched the Human mage walk to the round portal against the wall and disappear through it's greenish-black energies.

"Jennea Cannon," the young Human mage said with a smile.

"Ancasta Copperbolt," Ancasta responded and shook the mage's hand.

"So which one of you picked up the stray? Did you find Owl on the street or did he find you?" Jennea asked with a grin sideways at the Night Elf. OwlDance smirked at that and sat down on the edge of the table beside Ancasta.

"We found each other," OwlDance answered, then his face abruptly became serious. "There was another attack in the square in the Trade district..."

Jennea gave a long sigh and sank down into one of the chairs at the table, shaking her head. "When? We're sheltered from feeling the backwash up in the Sanctum."

"No more than two bells ago," OwlDance said. He nodded to Ancasta. "She had just arrived here from Ironforge, and happened to be walking across the square when the attack began. I was coming out of the Bank. A square full of flying magic, sabers and horses and people shouting and running in panic -- if I hadn't snatched Ancasta up she would have been trampled. She could have been killed by our own just as easily as by the Horde."

Jennea shook her head again, reached up to rub her eyes wearily. "Something must be done about this. Quickly, before more are killed beyond hope of resurrection. Are we to just allow this? The King --"

"-- is powerless, I know," OwlDance finished for her. "The Guilds are doing all they can."

"It's not enough," Jennea said. She straightened and looked to Ancasta again. "If you've seen the Horde, you've seen what we fight against. Especially for a mage, knowledge is power. We are no less warriors than people like Owl who fight with sword and axe and bow. It takes quite a while to achieve the level of power to fight monsters such as you saw today, but if you keep to the work one day you will be standing toe to toe with the worst the Horde has to offer. And you will be able to do so without fear and with the means to deal with them that few ever achieve."

Ancasta gulped and stared wide-eyed at the young Human mage. "Will it -- will it hurt? The fighting? Will I get hurt?"

Jennea nodded. "Yes. I won't lie to you. You will even die. But one of the first things we will show you is that death is not an end. We will show you how to return to your body and wake from death."

"Then those mages today in the square -- " Ancasta began. "Are they -- will they just -- wake up from being dead?"

"Yes," Owl said. "Everyone will. Even the warriors. My people have the grace of Elune, the Humans have their God of Light, the Draenei have whatever they call their god. The gods have made a covenant with all the peoples, that death is not the true end."

"But it hurts?" Ancasta squeaked.

"Yes," Jennea answered. "Thus the pain, the fear, you saw today. This is what we fight against, the fear and pain and disruption of the lives of so many. This is the weapon that the Horde use against us, even here in the fastness of our own city. They want to make us afraid -- well, I for one refuse to be afraid! I have the means to fight them, and I will not stand for my friends and my city being terrorized like this!"

Ancasta sat back and looked at the Human for a long moment. Then she looked down at her hands. "My people -- you know we are refugees. The Dwarves cannot be expected to play host to us forever. We have our machines but it wasn't enough against the Troggs. My grandfather fought against them on the day we lost Gnomeregan. When I was found to have magic in me, he was the only one who didn't look at me and wonder if I was bad blood. Fighting the Horde here, fighting them in the streets of Gnomeregan -- it doesn't matter where. You're right. People still are afraid, and the Horde are not going to stop for anything less than blow for blow. So yes. If you have a place for me, I would like to be your student."


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3

"Twenty silver," Ancasta said, looking down at the small pile of coins she had dumped out of her money pouch.

"Not as bad as I feared," OwlDance said across the table. He peered at the edge of the dagger in his hand and nodded, slid it into ithe sheath. He reached for the last slice of Dalaran cheese. "We can work with this. I think I can talk Goodwife Alison into letting you take that tiny little room up on the second floor. It's too small to be comfortable for anyone but a Gnome -- even a Dwarf would find it a bit claustrophobic. But it has a fair size window, and it's on the back side of the inn facing the canal and the guard tower of the Valley of Heroes. She can't leave anything valuable there as storage, not with that window. Even with the shutters closed it's too easy to get in there from the roof."

"And I won't have anything valuable," Ancasta asked with a smirk at him.

OwlDance shrugged. "Your most valuable asset can't be taken away from you. And a Firebolt is the best way ever devised for calling for help."

Ancasta laughed wearily at that and drank the last of her giant mug of water. The Blue Recluse had only Human sized mugs, and she had to use both hands to pick it up. Due to its proximity to the Wizard's Sanctum it was a popular place for the wizards studying at the Academy. Ancasta couldn't read the slateboard that showed the prices, but Owl's lack of expression told her he didn't agree with them.

"I think one of the most useful things to remember is that there are always options," OwlDance said. "Especially here in Stormwind. If the Gilded Rose doesn't work out, there is an inn in the Dwarven quarter. If not that, the Golden Compass down near the Harbor. If not that, you can ask around at the shops since many of them have the odd single room to rent out. Failing that, if you can convince a tavernkeeper you're trustworthy they may allow you to sleep in their cellarage. The key to all of it is having some coin and the ability to generate more income. How much income you generate is determined by how well you use what you find around you. If you live a simple life you won't need much income to keep it afloat."

Ancasta sat back in the too-big Human sized chair and sighed. "I'll need money for the training. My Master did say that. A teacher can't be expected to teach for free."

"It's not as bad as you're thinking," Owl said. "We have an entire forest full of resources just outside the city gates. A harbor full of fish. And there are always odd jobs to be done." He grinned at her over the last bite of his cheese. "I get along just fine without having to work."

Ancasta smiled but shook her head at that. She'd believe it when she saw it.

Goodwife Alison proved to be almost a non-issue.

"Of course she can have that old closet," the innkeeper said as they followed her up the stairs. "But mind, I've the trunks with the winter sheets and blankets there. I ask only that you don't get into them as we've got them packed with mothdust. We have to open them out in the courtyard to keep from passing out from the fumes when they're first opened."

The tiny room was just as Goodwife Alison named it -- a closet. The door was narrow, the room barely three paces wide and four long, tucked into the corner in the shadow of the inn's hearth chimney. Three large square wooden trunks were stacked against one wall. In the wall opposite the door was a window as wide as Ancasta's spread arms, covered in slat shutters with rusted hinges and a simple hook and eye latch. One wall was entirely of stone as it was the outside wall of the inn, the inner walls of wood beams and cracked plaster, and the floor was of wood planking without carpet.

"Perfect," OwlDance said.

Ancasta turned to peer up at him wonderingly.

Owl moved into the room, unstacked the trunks and pushed them all together against the wall. The crates were identical and had flat tops, and when pushed together made a sizable platform.

"Now. Stay here, I'll be back in a few minutes," Owl said, and disappeared down the stairs.

Goodwife Alison came back to the room's door and laughed at Ancasta's bemused expression as she stood looking around the little room. "He thrives on taking care of people," the innkeeper said.

"So I've noticed," Ancasta said. She shook herself and moved to unlatch the shutters and opened them to the late afternoon breeze. The sun was going down now, and through the open window now came the scents of meat roasting, bread baking. She slid her backpack off and sat down on the platform Owl had made of the trunks, and felt she could probably just lay down right there and sleep. It was only Owl's footsteps on the stairs outside the door that roused her.

"Don't you think you'd be much more comfortable on these?" Owl said at the door.

His arms were full of silky fur.

"How did you get all this?" Ancasta asked as she folded the last of the dark brown fur and laid it on top of the three already atop the trunk platform that was now a luxurious bed.

"There's a merchant just on the other side of the square who gets a lot of these in trade," Owl answered. "Some he passes on to a dealer elsewhere, but some are ruined and not worth passing on. So he's got a whole crate of these that no one is willing to buy. A few coppers and he let me have the best of the lot."

Thick bear fur now covered the platform, far more exotic than her little bed of sheepskins and old quilts in Master Wolfhammer's attic. There was another fur for covering. She's be warm as toast in the winter, though it would likely be too warm for the days of summer they currently lived in.

"Some of my guildmates are tailors. I'm sure I can trade for a lighter blanket, or an old cloak," Owl went on. He smiled as she tried to hide her yawn. "But I think that can wait til tomorrow."

"You've been such an incredible help," Ancasta said. "Thank you just doesn't seem enough. -- " Another yawn caught her in mid-sentence.

OwlDance chuckled at that and pushed to his feet. "You can thank me in the morning. I'll be around, don't worry. We'll see each other again."

With a final smile, he pulled the door closed behind him.

Ancasta watched him go, the tall Night Elf who had to bend over so he didn't hit his head on the closet's low ceiling, and shook her head wearily in amazement. Goodwife Alison had brought a sliver of wood to wedge under the door to provide a temporary lock. She made certain the door was held fast, then took off her boots and the belt with its array of pouches. Taking her sheathed dagger from the belt, she laid it under the fold of bear fur that served as a pillow, crawled wearily into the soft silkiness of the fur, and was asleep before she was settled in for the night.

It seemed the heart of life of Stormwind was the square of the Trade district, and it took Ancasta only two days to discover why. Business was the life's blood of the city, and the engines of that business were the Auction House and the bank. It was no random chance that had put them within sight of each other, nor that the weapons, armor and trade goods merchants were in between. The square was always crowded, from the ninth bell of the morning to the ninth bell of night when the Auction House and the Bank shut their doors. Even beyond those times, life was not laggard. Street vendors knew a good market when they saw it, and the Guilds were ever present. This, given their purposes, was the reason the Horde almost always chose to attack the Trade square above almost every other area of the city -- because it was the most populous and the most prosperous.

Over the next few days, Ancasta would come to the door of the Gilded Rose to see OwlDance sitting on the steps of the Bank beside the inn, or on the edge of the old fountain just outside its door. Sometimes he would be surrounded by leather, thread and tools, some half-made piece of armor or clothing in his hands. Sometimes he would be sharpening a dagger, or lounging indolently as only the Elves seemed capable with strands of his long black hair floating on any stray breeze. The first morning she came out of the inn he smiled as she came to where he sat on the edge of the old fountain.

"See there? That Human man going round the corner?" he asked, gesturing with the hand holding his leather awl. Ancasta looked and caught sight of the burly Human pushing a small handcart at the corner beside the Trade Goods shop. "He's from the bakery shop. He goes through the square several times a day selling fresh bread. You'll have to be a hunter if you're going to catch your breakfast."

Ancasta was off after the baker and his cart before Owl had hardly finished speaking.

Though she longed for the little cherry pies (which given they were made for Humans would be a full day's worth of meals for her), she knew she must stretch her money as far as it would go. In the end, she settled for a half-loaf of the simple journeybread the baker made for those going hunting. She knew she'd have other expenses. And as of yet, she had no way to provide for herself.

She came back to the inn and climbed up onto the edge of the old fountain beside him with the half-loaf of bread. For a Human or an Elf it would have made a decent enough breakfast. For her, it would last her all day.

OwlDance watched as she started to reach in to the twine bag for a slice of the rough bread. Then he smirked a little and put his leatherwork aside and went to the door of the inn. A moment later, he came out again with a crockery jar.

"If you tell Alison I know where she keeps the honeypot I'll flatly deny every word," he said in a droll voice as he put the jar down beside her.

Ancasta giggled and leaned against the muscular shoulder, and in the end they shared the bread and the honey, and it was a good way to start the morning all around.

It was a good thing she'd had that quiet breakfast with OwlDance, for the rest of the day was a mental steeplechase as Mistress Jennea assessed Ancasta's knowledge of the fundamentals of magic.

Her grandfather had secretly taught her to conjure Fireballs and to protect herself with the Frost Armor spell years before when she had first begun to show magical potential. The long treks through the icy forests of Dun Morogh had provided more than enough opportunity to practice, though she'd had no chance to test the effectiveness of the Frost Armor. When she'd reached Master Wolfhammer she began to learn the formal structures and theory of magic, and with that had come instruction in enhancing her mental abilities via a spell called Arcane Intellect. Her Master had then set her to learning how to conjure water, and then to call Frostbolts. He'd set her to practice on small casks of honey wine, hitting them with Frostbolt repeatedly while her Master scooped out the ice that formed. She couldn't understand why he was so pleased with it until he'd let her try some of the devil-mead. He'd laughed his jolly belly laugh at her, then went to stand outside the door of the shop and called to his friends at the Great Forge to come share the devil-wine.

Mistress Elise had shown her the basic process of Inscription, but it seemed so fiddly and detailed that Ancasta knew she'd have no talent in it. None of her teachers had had any truck with Enchanting, so she had no grounding at all in it.

"Why alchemy?" Jennea asked as she went on with the assessment.

"I have a cousin who's an alchemist," Ancasta said. "We hadn't grown up together -- her family chose to stay in Ironforge after Gnomeregan -- so I was very surprised when she came into Master Wolfhammer's shop. She'd come drag me out to help her on her collecting trips. I picked it up from her and I loved it. It's very scientific," Ancasta finished with a shrug.

"It can be highly lucrative," Jennea said with a knowing smile.

"Girl's gotta make a living," Ancasta agreed.

"Well. I think I know where to start with you now. Fireball and Frostbolt are at the moment your most effective spells for combat, and will remain so. But they do have drawbacks, mainly that they take so long to cast. You'll need something quicker. And more, you'll need to develop the skill of knowing how to manage your energies and you'll need -- oh, call it a sense of strategy," Jennea went on. "You have only a finite amount of mana at any given time, and you must learn to assess a situation quickly to determine which spells will be most effective. Everyone has to learn this, so don't feel like you're behind."

Ancasta nodded and looked out over the lawn between the outdoor terrace of the Blue Recluse and the rampway to the Wizard's Sanctum. Squirrels gamboled over the grass and two Human mages on horses were riding across the square toward the staff merchant. Two white-haired Night Elves on their giant frostsaber cats galloped by, taking the shortcut through the Mage's Quarter to their own district near Stormwind's main gates.

"How am I to keep myself here?" Ancasta asked. "I'm willing to work should anyone need an assistant, or a courier back to Ironforge. I know nearly everyone there, and I can even take messages all the way to Loch Modan if needed."

Jennea chuckled at that. "You'll have a means to make a living. You have it right now, as a matter of fact. Once I'm satisfied you have Fireblast and Frost Nova well understood and that you can perform the Releasing spell in your sleep, you'll be going out into Elwynn to gather herbs for your alchemy. You'll find that some of the creatures in Elwynn will object to your presence. You'll find they'll provide you with ample goods for trade. Not to mention your alchemy. In fact, I have someone in mind as your instructor for that and they're just down the way. Let's go see her now."

Three days later, Ancasta was staring up at the ceiling of her little room wondering if she had the energy to get up and go scrounge up something to eat or if she should just forget about it.

A knock came at the door. "Ancasta?"

Ancasta groaned and painfully sat up, then shuffled to the door and moved the wedge of wood to open it.

OwlDance stood there. He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped and thought again. "Bad day?"

"Do you know how they teach the Releasing spell?" she said flatly.

OwlDance shook his head. "No."

"It involves a large Human man with a hammer and the element of surprise," Ancasta said. She reached up to rub her eyes. "Until you get it right. And then ten more times to practice."

"Oh. Well, I was going to ask you to come Fireball the firepit so I can start cooking the ribs," Owl said. "Unless you'd rather just go on to bed."

Ancasta sighed. "No. I forgot it was the first night of the Faire. I'll be right down."

Five minutes later, Ancasta arrived at the Guilded Rose's enclosed courtyard to find Owl fussing over the barrel full of marinating boar ribs, the long firepit filled with fragrant woods from the depths of Elwynn Forest waiting ready with the metal grills off to the side.

Also waiting was one of Owl's guildmates, a Dwarven warrior by the name of Stoneblade. "Ha! Who would have thought a twig-chewing Elf would know how to cook good tasty boar meat, eh little sister?" Stoneblade chortled as she arrived.

"We have boars in Teldrassil," Owl protested. "Why shouldn't I have?"

"Then where's all this 'love the trees, love the animals' prattle you Elves are so fond of?" Stoneblade jibed as he reached for his large mug of ale.

"We do love the trees and the animals, but more we are aware that all life preys on death and this must be for the sake of the balance of nature," Owl said. "And to enjoy one's food and not waste a single morsel does honor to the animal that gave its life for yours."

"The sacredness of cooking? Elf, you're a dainty flower chasing the bees!" Stoneblade chuckled. "Almost I'd believe those knives are for show, not for fighting. A true warrior fights with a sword and no less!"

"Really?" Ancasta asked sweetly and lifted her hands. They began to glow with a sun-like fury and it built until it shot out to the wood in the firepit. Instantly the wood burst into fierce flame. She turned to Stoneblade and wiggled the fingers of her raised hands, smirking. "Not a blade in sight. Shall I cool your ale? I could frost your beard while I'm at it."

Stoneblade laughed loudly and shook his head at her.

"Never mind him, he obviously has issues," said a beautiful Draenei shaman in intricately tooled leathers as she came into the courtyard. Her blue hair was braided into a myriad of tiny strands and swirled around her and over the softly glowing green stone in the head of her staff in its carrying loop on her back. She came and knelt before Ancasta, offering her fine-boned hands in greeting. "I am Jevalyn."

"Ancasta," Ancasta answered and smiled at the exotic alien woman, took her hands and giggled tiredly. Jevalyn smiled gently back, then turned her violet eyes on Stoneblade. "Are you going to help Owl with the making of the food or simply make disparaging remarks?"

Stoneblade belly-laughed at that and slid down from the Human sized chair where he'd been sitting, and Owl came to help him lay the metal grills over the firepit.

Jevalyn turned her eyes to Ancasta again. "You are drained."

"It's been a long day," Ancasta said. "I just began my training with Mistress Jennea two days ago."

"Ah," Jevalyn answered, then pushed gracefully to her feet. She went to the table by the wall where Stoneblade's ale cask and several bottles and pitchers were laid out. Looking among them, she took a crockery cup from a tray nearby and filled it from a small glass botle. She brought it to Ancasta. "Come. Sit. And drink. This will restore you."

Ancasta climbed up onto the chair Stoneblade had vacated and took the crockery mug. She sniffed of the fruity scent curiously. "What is it?"

"Juice of the melon. A restorative for those of magical inclinations," Jevalyn said. She smiled again softly as Ancasta took her first gulp and sighed with relief as the melon potion's effects were immediately apparent. The Draenei shaman slipped closer to OwlDance. "We have bread and cheese? Give me a knife, I will slice them."

The sun went down and as night descended and more of Owl's guildmates arrived magic-powered lanterns were brought out and hung around the courtyard of the Guilded Rose. Goodwife Alison and her Guardsman husband came to claim their share of the succulent boar ribs, spice bread, fried okra, fruit salad and other items from the almost overflowing tables. Over the course of the night, many of the vendors from around the Trade District came and went, Guardsmen on their rounds were welcomed and given skewers of boar meat and a mug of Stonehammer's ale. Around the courtyard, OwlDance's guildmates sat around tables or on cushions and benches around the firepit, eating and telling tales and immersed in talk without regard for race.

After the melon juice restored her energies Ancasta stayed where she sat against the wall beside the table holding the drink selection. She'd felt good enough that after a while she got up to gather up a meal for herself and settled back with a Human sized plate full of food and a Human sized mug full of apple cider. She was content to simply sit and watch as the guild enjoyed an early summer night, the first night of the Darkmoon Faire. The day of getting repeately killed and waking from death had taken its toll on her spirit. She wanted nothing to do with anyone, but wanted only to sit undisturbed and watch the happy converse of the guild as they welcomed friends and laughingly bade them good night when thy made their goodbyes. The contrast between the life and death seriousness of cheating death that day and this blithe informal celebration in the night could not have been more jarring.

That it was possibly the most vital skill she could ever acquire made it all the more surreal.

"So I'm told you're in training to be a mage," said a voice at her elbow.

Ancasta blinked and brought herself out of her thoughts to see one of her own folk leaning against the wall beside her, mug of wine in his hand. Dressed in fine black leather armor, with dark hair and eyes, he looked to be about her parents' age. Twin black-hilted knives rode in sheathes on his back.

"Yes. Provided it doesn't kill me first. And refuse to resurrect me," she said with a weak grin.

The other Gnome chuckled at that. "From the Copperbolt family? Amergin Copperbolt's granddaughter, aren't you?"

"Yes. How did you know?" Ancasta asked, surprised.

He shrugged. "Old friends with Tink Overspark. He's your grandfather's cousin."

Ancasta nodded at that. Such was the way of Gnomish society. Sometimes it seemed like everybody knew everybody else, but that was only because so few were left from the devastation of the Trogg invasion a generation ago. A yawn caught her abruptly. "Oh. I'm sorry, it's been a long day."

He smiled at that and tossed back the remainder of his drink, then patted her shoulder and started over toward the food tables. "Better get to your bed before you fall asleep right there. Be welcome among us in the guild."

She murmured a sleepy acknowledgement and realized her fellow Gnome was right. She sighed and slid down from the chair to take her plate and mug to the bin for dirty dishes.

"That went well," Owl said as he appeared seemingly out of nowhere beside her.

"What went well?" Ancasta asked as he took the plate and mug and put them in the bin.

"You're now officially a member of the guild," Owl said. "That Gnome you were just talking to is our leader, Kill Mechaswarm. You're in."

Ancasta blinked. "Oh."

Owl laughed softly at her nonplussed response. "And he's right. Go on to bed. Tomorrow is another day."

Ancasta yawned again as she stumbled back into the Gilded Rose, and moments later fell asleep in the cool night air to the faint sounds of the voices of her new guildmates in the courtyard below her window.


	4. Chapter 4

Part 4

And so, it all came down to this.

Ancasta stood under the high soaring arch of the gate into Elwynn Forest and looked out at the road leading to Goldshire. A hundred yards distant, a black and white cow ambled across the road, supremely unconcerned. She settled her herb satchel at her hip, made certain her staff was secured in its new leather carry loop across her back. Taking the small glass vial out of her belt pouch, she twisted the cork out of the top and quickly swallowed the bitter dark liquid that left her tongue purple and numbed her throat. Lifting her hands, she gathered her magic and cast two spells in quick succession - Frost Armor and Arcane Intellect.

When the echo of the spells faded in the air around her she stepped off the stone of the archway and onto the road into Elwynn.

It was time to start earning her keep.

-O-O-

"So, Elf - *hic* - I see business doesn't wait for a civilized time of day."

OwlDance looked up from his fourth packet of coin from the Auction House at the swaying blue-green Draenei warrior in the foppish outfit - half armor, half finely embroidered silk. Wasichu's potion pouches clinked softly as he staggered over to sit on the side of the old fountain beyond Owl's leatherwork.

"For either of us, apparently," Owl said dryly. "Are you getting an early start on imbibing your handiwork or simply unwilling to let the pleasures of the night be done?"

The Draenei laughed loudly. "Sobriety is over-rated, Elf! I fight better this way! When there's two of everything I can't miss! Where's the little red-headed snippet?"

"In Elwynn," Owl said as he opened another packet of coin. He shuffled the three letter packets and broke the seal on the next. A handful of silver coins fell out into his hand and he checked the letter detailing the transaction. "She's out gathering the herbs you are too drunk to find this early in the morning."

"Ha! We'll see about that. She can have Elwynn. I'll be off to Southshore by noon!" Wasichu staggered a little as he pushed to his hooved feet. He hiccuped again loudly and patted his potion pouch. "I'm off to buy bullets, Elf. Enough to shoot every Horde kin in Arathi!"

"The bulletmakers will be pleased," OwlDance murmured as his guildmate stumbled off across the Trade district square. He opened the last of the Auction House packets and smiled to see a gold piece and a handful of silver. Re-folding the letter packet, he found himself looking down at the last letter. The plain black ribbon secured a black wax seal without any imprint. It seemed to absorb the bright light of morning as if the black ribbon were a strip cut out of a moonless, cloudy night.

He tucked it into his leatherworking satchel unread.

-O-O-

It seemed the key to safety in Elwynn didn't depend on weapons or spells so much as on the ability to outrun the things chasing you.

Slavering fanged jaws filled her sight, a horrible enraged roar, and what seemed to be a mountain of gray-white fur. She saw it leap forward again toward her just as the Fireball left her hands. The sphere of sun-like fury caught it in the chest, and it made a terrible pained shriek before collapsing to the ground dead.

Shaking all over, panting from exertion, she stood for a long moment unable to move with residual terror. The wolf carcass smoldered, charred and crackling, smoke rising from the corpse. Ancasta choked on a breath and frantically darted her eyes around searching for the next predator. But nothing was near enough to be aware of her presence.

Gaining a little more composure, she turned quickly to the tree behind her and jerked her herb knife out of its sheath, swiftly gathered up a handful of the Silverleaf and sliced through the stems. She stuffed it one-handed into her herb satchel and sheathed the knife with the other, then fumbled in her potion pouch for a healing potion.

Steadied by the act of drinking the little vial of clear red liquid, she finally took a deeper breath, collected herself, and started off again.

It only took two encounters that morning to decide she hated this. Killing innocent animals trying to do nothing more than defend their pups or territory turned her stomach. To do so for no greater reason than a handful or two of herbs sickened her. She'd never longed so much for the clean, calm, mechanical world of her own folk as when she was looking down at something she had killed with her own two hands.

Maybe she'd become accustomed to it. Or hardened to it.

The scent of Silverleaf grew stronger on the breeze, and with it the unmistakable chitter of a giant spider.

She clutched her staff and ran toward the sound.

-O-O-

"Elf! I've got fifty cuts of boar meat! Cook it up and we'll have a party for the end of the Faire as well as we did the beginning!"

OwlDance lifted one finely-drawn eyebrow and turned as Stoneblade came through the stone archway into the Gilded Rose's inner courtyard swinging two bulging sacks. He tilted his head to glance at his two companions and smirked a little at the hungry growls from their Frostsaber riding cats. "Rainshadow, Starshine, this is Stoneblade. Stoneblade, these are Rainshadow and Starshine and you have just brought fifty cuts of raw boar meat to within striking distance of their sabers Frost and Ice."

"Nonsense, cousin," Rainshadow said with a laugh in her voice as she patted the ruffed neck of her mount. "Frost has his standards, he wouldn't want the taste of Dwarf blood in his mouth. It would ruin the taste of good fresh-killed boar."

Her mate Starshine chuckled darkly as Stoneblade stopped abruptly a step inside the courtyard. His great striped white cat stretched lazily and gave a snarl as he yawned, showing great dagger-like fangs. He leaned over to murmur over the furry ears. "Shall I shoot him in the leg so he's easier to catch, my friend?"

"Nevermind, Elf! Elemore and that Holy Circle crowd of his are meeting at the Pig n' Whistle, the cook there's not half bad!" Stoneblade whirled and trotted back out of the courtyard in a hurry.

All three Night Elves laughed as the Dwarf fled. But it was only a moment's break in a polite argument that had lasted for the better part of an hour.

"It is not a command, cousin," Rainshadow said soothingly. "Merely an offer."

"I'm surprised they are making such an offer at all," OwlDance murmured. He smiled a little as Frost crawled forward another few inches and imperiously shoved his great white head under Owl's elbow in a clear bid to continue the scritches that Stoneblade's entrance had interrupted. "It was Grandmother who 'suggested' I seek my fortunes elsewhere. Now they are offering me a frostsaber. It would not be happening without Grandmother's knowledge and permission. She refuses to even look at me, Rain. What am I to think?"

"It's not entirely Grandmother's decision," Rainshadow said with a shrug. "Her voice is heard, but she is not the only voice. The path you have chosen to walk does not make false the blood from which you came."

Owl sighed and patted Frost's huge clawed paw as the giant cat wrapped a forepaw around his arm playfully. The cat's golden eyes and rumbling purr projected a feeling of vast contentment and calm. He could only imagine what his cousin and her mate felt from their lifelong partners, with their minds linked at so primal a level.

"Starshine and I will be here for the next few weeks," Rainshadow continued. "As messengers and emissaries to the King's court from the Circle. There is another reason you have been offered a frostsaber. The Circle wants as many of the adult cats away from Teldrassil as can be managed. And as many of the young ones as we can safely separate from their mothers."

Owl blinked at her in mild shock, stuck silent by the implications of what his cousin had not said. The Circle would not countenance such a dispersal of the frostsabers - much less the young ones! - without dire need.

"The Death Knights?" he asked, his voice harsh.

Rainshadow looked away. "We are not blind, cousin. And we are expected at the King's palace."

She reached into her belt pouch and pressed a token into his hand, and the two silently urged their mounts to rise and lope slowly out of the courtyard. OwlDance watched them go, then looked down at the token in his hand. He knew what it would be, but he hoped it wasn't. But it was.

The intricate symbol of the Cenarion Circle imprinted one side of the coin-sized token, and on the other the stylized face of a frostsaber surrounded by twining Elven runes. With this token, he could return to Darnassus and claim his right as a frostsaber rider, and claim the mount that chose him for his or her own.

-O-O-

"There you are," Jevalyn said as Ancasta trudged the last few feet to the old stone fountain outside the Gilded Rose's front door. The Draenei shaman smiled a little as the Gnome slumped onto the fountain's edge.

"All that work, pain and terror for only two silver," Ancasta mumbled. "I died four times today. If I never see the inside of a wolf's gullet as it's diving at me again, it'll be too soon."

The shaman nodded. "Only two silver?"

Ancasta nodded a little. "The alchemy merchant who's training me bought the whole lot.."

Jevalyn tilted her head gracefully in a sort of half-nod. "That is one way of converting your labor into money. But there is a much more lucrative means."

Ancasta straightened a little. "I was going to go on up to the Sanctum and make up the potions but I'm so tired I'd probably fall asleep over the retort and firepot."

Jevalyn nodded again. "That too. But there is a way even beyond that. When next you go into the forest to gather herbs, leave off in time so that you can bring your herbs to the Auction house."

Ancasta stared at her in surprise. "Sell the herbs? But anybody can go out into the forest and gather them!"

Jevalyn nodded again. "Yes. But many are lazy and choose to let others do their work for them. And are willing to pay more coin than they are worth for that privilege. Also for linen cloth, wool cloth, meat - many things. This is how Owl makes the majority of his money. He sells the raw leather and the meat he gathers in the forest and clams from the shores of Auberdine."

"Oh," Ancasta said. She knew there had to be a trick to this game. This was it, apparently. "Well, now I know."

"That you do," Jevalyn agreed, smiling. "I've been waiting for you to return. Owl will not be returning to the inn tonight. He's been asked to cook for one of the wealthy merchants, for a party for the end of the Faire. The asking came suddenly this afternoon, and he is having to rush to find enough meat and drink. He said to tell you he shall see you tomorrow, after you return from Mistress Jennea."

"Good," Ancasta groaned as she pushed herself to her feet again. "I'd be ashamed to see him as I am now. Sweaty and grimy, with twigs in my hair and blood soaked into my dress. I'm for a wash and then straight to bed."

-O-O-

The guardsmen stationed at the door of the Royal Guild Hall saw nothing in the torchlit courtyard as the night wore on, and neither did their replacements as the twilight shift gave way to the midnight shift. The guardsmen posted along the upper hallways heard no treat of feet upon the wood plank floors, nor any step upon the stairs leading into the main hall. But three of the twelve most prominent merchant lords died that night, ending the dawning accord that had begun to take shape at that night's pivotal meeting between rivals and enemies. By the morning, most of the remaining guild lords had either declared war upon each other or let it be known that their guilds would no longer do business in Stormwind. And by the morning the King's mages found the traces of deadly poisons in the few drops of wine remaining in the dead lords' cups.

Author's Notes:

The potion Ancasta drinks at the beginning is Elixir of Minor Defense.

Wasichu is a real character in my guild who once helped Owl with hunting for leather in Elwynn, I remember chasing frantically after him skinning as he raced around shooting everything skinnable in sight. Afterward, he unloaded about 2 dozen potions on me. I don't think he'd mind being a drunken, trigger-happy sot. He's already a fop. :)

I've only just gotten the hang of the Auction House. Sell mats, not finished goods, and set a reasonable buy-out price.


	5. Chapter 5

Part 5

The leaves of the trees were beginning to turn in Elwynn Forest when Ancasta awoke one morning to the sounds of screams in the near distance.

"Anca?" she heard outside the door of her little room. It was Jevalyn.

She hurriedly buckled on her belt and shoved her feet into her boots, grabbed up her herb satchel and the newly-acquired wand and her staff as Jevalyn stood at the door waiting tensely, glancing down the inn's stairs.

"Where's Owl?" she whispered as Jevalyn knelt and gathered her up.

"I'm not certain," the shaman whispered back. "But I am here. Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Ancasta said with a nervous laugh.

The Draenei smiled at her, tightened her arms around the Gnome and leaped down the stairs and burst out the open door of the Gilded Rose.

"Do not look," Jevalyn whispered as she dashed to the left and up the street, then left again into a tunnelgate. "They are taking people out of their houses, and what they are doing to them you do not need to know."

Despite the screams that seemed to be coming from every direction Stormwind was unnaturally silent, even for so early in the morning. The sun was only half-risen, the angular delicate golden light of dawn just beginning to color the tops of the towers of the wealthy. Ancasta felt something in the air all around them, like magic but sharp as the edge of a blade and with something lurking in it that felt like the trembling tension of a mountain of snow on the edge of avalanche. Despite Jevalyn's near-silent swiftness and total absorption in getting them as far as possible from the Trade District, she could feel the young shaman's fearful shivering.

A male voice called out softly in Draenei and Jevalyn gave a soft little cry of surprise and relief and answered as she changed course and ducked into the doorway of a tailor's shop. More words and Jevalyn's shaking voice answering and Ancasta lifted her face from the shaman's shoulder to look around.

"Are you all right, Snippet?" Wasichu said as Jevalyn turned into the big male's arms and buried her face in his shoulder. He took Ancasta into one arm and Jevalyn in the other and held them both for a long moment, then kissed Jevalyn's forehead and whispered something in their language to her. She nodded and hurried to join the Dwarf keeping watch at the door.

It was amazing the odd things that came to mind when one was terrified. "You're not drunk," Ancasta said suddenly. She didn't think she'd ever seen Wasichu sober.

"Ha! I'm aching to be, Snippet. It would make this all so much easier," he said in an amused rumble. He walked to the tailor's counter and set her down there. "Did you see anyone else on the way?" he asked.

"No. But Wasa - I recognized many who were being executed," Jevalyn answered, her voice shaking. "Guild Masters. Battlefield commanders. High mages and healers and shaman."

Wasichu growled at that. "Leadership and healers."

"They are searching door to door," the Dwarf said. He turned and looked to Wasichu, his dark eyes hard with fury. "No one is fighting back."

"Most like no one can," Wasichu muttered. "One of the high spells negates all magic. Doesn't stop blades or gunshots, but there's other ways to deal with those. They sit in the square and cast and their ghouls and gargoyles drag the victims to them."

Ancasta gulped and felt her knees go weak. She'd seen what the Death Knights did to toy with their victims before they killed them.

They all heard the gunshots in the distance, and the roars of frostsabers and the galloping of hooves.

"We need to get out of here," Wasichu rumbled. "No doubt they've already killed the griffins, and the ships in the harbor are probably being watched for people fleeing. Jeva, we're closest to the Palace, how quickly do you think we can get there?"

"Five minutes, no more. But they'll have it under seige," Jevalyn answered.

"The tram!" Ancasta said. "Isn't there a shortcut, an alley -"

"Girl's right," the Dwarf said at the door. "Through that taproom and that tiny little inn -"

"I wouldn't call it an inn when you can rent rooms by the hour," Wasichu said dryly. He was obviously trying to suppress a smirk. "I know the place. And no, Jeva, not in the way you're thinking," he growled at her. "But they'll have the tram guarded too. And we'd have no cover and no where to run in the tunnels."

"Then we defend," Jevalyn said. "We are less than a minute from the Cathedral if we run. The catacombs are defensible and it will be a rallying point for the priests."

Wasichu looked at her for a long moment then nodded. He tugged his potion pouch around to his hip and began taking out potions. "I'll take the child. Jeva, cast your spells or whatever you can to protect yourself and our Dwarven friend. When we open that door we run and we do not stop until we are within the Cathedral doors. Do you understand?"

-O-O-

The Dwarf proved to be a courier from Thelsamar and the second they burst out of the tailor's shop a huge shaggy-coated white ram pounded up to him and spun to present his haunches to his rider. The Dwarf leapfrogged up into the saddle without breaking stride and began to trot ahead of them, double-bladed axe in a sheath on his saddle and a fine muzzleloading rifle held ready in one hand.

Riding in the unfastened top of Wasichu's rucksack, Ancasta clutched at the her Fireball wand in one hand and the embroidered neckband of the Draenei's velvet coat in the other. She could never have kept up with the two Draenei on her own two feet - Wasichu was as tall as OwlDance and Jevalyn nearly so, and could run as quickly as a horse at a canter. In a few breaths they were across the canal and inside another tunnelgate that led to Cathedral Square, flattened against the wall as the Dwarven courier held his mount back. All of them were well aware the Cathedral too could be under attack.

Jevalyn nodded silently to Wasichu, drew herself up and began to murmur a spell. Within the space of a drawn breath her form melted to that of a black wolf, then all but vanished. The shadowy wolf-form loped around the corner and out of their sight.

The clattering of hooves sounded at the other side of the tunnelgate and Wasichu and the Dwarf instantly brought their rifles up to aim at the sound. Three Humans, two Paladins and one a Priest, came through the entrance and pulled up short at the sight of the Draenei and the Dwarf.

Wasichu just as quickly lowered his gun. "Father Patraic. Staverus."

The young Priest nodded to him and motioned the two to go through the tunnelgate toward the Cathedral as the two Paladins drew their swords. "Staverus and Celinia will guard us. Are any others of your guild likely to join us, Marksman?"

"My sister is scouting to make sure the Cathedral hasn't been compromised," Wasichu said. He handed his rifle to the Dwarf and swung his rucksack off. Ancasta scrambled out. "Father, if you'll escort young Miss Copperbolt to the safety of your church I'll stay to help keep watch with Staverus and Lady Celinia." He scopped Ancasta up and handed her up to the Priest. "He's a good one as far as churchmen go, Snippet."

"What a vote of confidence, my son," Patraic said with a chuckle. "Staverus, if you catch sight of the enemy or their minions, sound your horn before you return to the church so we will not shoot you by mistake."

"Aye Father," the Paladin answered. The Priest turned his horse and it leaped into a gallop.

The Priest rode right into the front door of the Cathedral before swinging down out of the saddle in the midst of a dozen warriors, Paladins and Priests. He absently set Ancasta on her feet and she darted out of the way of hooves and the armor-clad legs of the Humans.

The Cathedral's entrance hall was filled with Dwarves and Humans, most of them warriors, hunters and Paladins. The Dwarves were crouched against the front doorway of the Cathedral, loaded rifles at the ready, boxes of ammunition at their knees as they stuffed shells into the pouches at their belts.

"You'll want to go on in to the sanctuary, Miss," one of the younger Dwarves said as she spun looking all around her at the grim preparations.

Ancasta gulped, then flipped open the coverflap of her herb satchel. "Here. Pass these out amongst you. I've got Elixir of Lion's Strength, Minor Defense, Minor Rejuvenation, Fortitude, Healing. I'm only an apprentice, but - well, it's what I can do and I will."

It wasn't enough.

-O-O-

OwlDance jumped and climbed easily halfway up the rigging of the Bravery as the other passengers crowded at the railing, all straining their eyes for the first sight of the harborside ramparts of Stormwind. The Bravery's sharp-eyed bo'sun's mate had seen smoke rising in columns on the horizon almost an hour before, and all aboard were dreading what they would see.

"Curse them! Curse every one of their black souls!" the Captain cried out from the rear deck where he too peered into the distance with his spy glass.

"A bit late for that, Cap'n," Stoneblade muttered below OwlDance's perch. "Elf? If I can see the bodies surely you can."

Owl's blood went cold and he began to frantically search the docks just now coming into view.

No, not the docks. They were in the water itself, and the Bravery was swiftly closing on them. "Captain! In the water, ahead of us!"

The Captain gave quick orders and his crew leaped to obey, bringing out long poles with loops of rope at the end and hurriedly furling the Bravery's sails to cut her speed. The crew knew their business and gently snared several bodies as they came into range, pulling them to the side of the boat. Owl, Stoneblade, and several other Night Elves pulled them aboard.

"Captain, the smoke - I'd say there's fires all across the city," the First Mate called down from the rigging.

"Wills, Stoneheel, make us ready to put in to the dock. Brightgrass, Winterdew, I'll leave the retrievals to you. Fairfolk, help them," the Captain ordered. "All passengers, prepare to depart."

Stoneblade and OwlDance traded grim looks and turned to help the ship's two Sentinels at their sad task of retrieving the dead.

-O-O-

"They haven't revived," Owl said quietly to Stoneblade as the Bravery turned gracefully and slowly approached her berth at the dock.

"Aye, Elf. What's caused that, I wonder?" Stoneblade agreed. He shook his head and shifted in his heavy plate armor. "You poisoned those pigstickers of yours yet?"

OwlDance nodded shortly. "I'll make for the Trade District, then the Mage Quarter."

Stoneblade grunted and hefted his greatsword as the crew of the Bravery bound the ship to the dock and secured her for disembarking. "I'm for the Dwarven District and Old Town. Try to find Master Kill, then meet us in the Guild Hall in the Dwarven by sundown. I'll get everybody headed that way that I find."

"So will I," OwlDance nodded. He gave Stoneblade a frosty smile and ran lightly down the gangplank and onto the dock. Stoneblade grunted, heaved himself up onto the plank. When he looked up again, the Night Elf had vanished.

-O-O-

The cobblestones of the Trade District were awash in blood. He knew he'd have to make himself a new pair of boots in the days ahead - there was no way he could wear these again, splashed and soaking in the blood of so many bodies piled all around. He could see a pattern in how they had crumpled to the ground, could still faintly see the glowing sigils of black and sickly green pulsing in the air. He could vaguely recognize some of the clothing, a few Guild tabards. But the bodies were shriveled like dried fruit, hands emaciated into clawed agony. The severed heads, eyesockets empty but still dripping gore where the eyes had burst, hung by their hair from the tree in the center of the square.

Trails of blood and bloodied footprints stained the marble steps of the Stormwind Counting House, and he renewed his grip on his daggers and crept silently and unseen to the open doorway. Inside only one of the oil lamp sconces was still alight, and the small circle of brightness it gave did nothing to dispel the dark. He smelled dead bear, terror, and gunpowder.

The square had been silent, but inside the stone-fortified walls of the Bank he could hear a steady dripping and felt it when his boots squelched through wetness. He found skirted around the rope maze the Bank used for long lines and found the open arch of a teller window by feel. There were at least two bodies in front of the archway, one with the pebbled hide of a raptor, the other with the metallic tang of plate armor. Silently sheathing his daggers, he set his fingers into the stone wall that protected the vault area and began to climb.

The tellers were all dead, but the vaults seemed to be intact. He found a candle lamp on one of the desks and used his flintstriker to light it. The tellers lay where they had fallen, scattered coin and account ledgers around them, the wooden vault bins of the account holders who died at the window overturned.

Setting the candle lamp in one of the teller windows, he boosted himself up the wall and over, then retrieved the candle and took another look around. No one in the Bank had been shriveled or beheaded. They were all just dead, but hadn't yet revived. That in itself was disturbing, since this had to have happened at least an hour ago, probably more.

Trying to swallow back his nausea, he gratefully crept out the door of the Bank and back into the horror of the square. Steeling himself again, he began to make his way past the gore of the tree with its dangling severed heads and the piles of desicated bodies. He pulled his daggers silently and took a deep breath.

The sound of a footstep on the cobblestones behind him, and he spun and flung a throwing dagger in one fluid motion.

It struck the cobblestones and clattered to a stop, and his Guildmaster Kill Mechaswarm stood spun half around where he'd jerked himself out of the way of the flying blade, peering at OwlDance with surprise in his eyes.

"Nervous?" Kill asked.

Owl just blinked at him, numb, then turned and dropped gracelessly onto the steps of the silent Auction House and gestured around them helplessly in explanation.

Mechaswarm looked around assessingly, frowned at the gore and nodded. Then he drew himself up and for all that he was less than a third of OwlDance's size he still drew command around him as close as his black leather armor. "We have work to do, Rogue," he said steadily.

OwlDance nodded. "Stoneblade is gathering everybody we can find at the Guildhall in the Dwarven District. I haven't found anybody alive yet."

Mechaswarm turned, retrieved Owl's throwing dagger and picked his way around the scattered bodies. He wiped it clean on a handful of a corpse's cloak and handed it to the Night Elf, who grimaced and replaced it in its sheath. Then he dug in a pouch on his belt and brought out a small glass sphere with some kind of mechanism on one side and a yellowish liquid trapped inside. "My folk call this the Gnomish Bright Idea," he said with a weak smile and spun a tiny crank on the mechanism. The yellow liquid inside bubbled, fizzled, and began to glow with a steady white light. "Let's go."


	6. Chapter 6

Part 6

Ancasta wasn't sure she'd actually wakened until the abrupt burst of light threw the uneven, rough-forged bars of the long holding cell into stark relief. She froze as she heard the gutteral voices barking commands from outside the bars.

"Don't move," she heard Jevalyn whisper.

Jevalyn needn't have warned her - she couldn't have moved at that moment if she'd wanted to. Terror held her as immobile as if she were frozen in ice.

There came the clang of a sword blade rattling against the bars, drawn along eliciting rhythmic clashes of sound as the gigantic Orc in black iron armor stalked outside the cell.

"Keep them alive and in one piece," said a smooth tenor voice. "Beyond that, it's up to you. If I have to heal or resurect anything, I'm taking the mana out of your hide and the lives of your children, Straekas."

"Understood, my lord," the Orc boomed out.

"I want two of them tonight. Humans, Draenei, either, I don't care."

"We captured many of the Teldrassil scum, my lord, if they would be more to your liking," the Orc rumbled.

The tenor voice laughed, a silky sound that still made Ancasta feel as if her heart had stopped. _Owl! Owl!_

"No. They're comely enough, in their insipid way. But I'm after more fiery fare. A soul that fights is a soul that satisfies, Straekas."

The Orc laughed uproariously at that. "Aye, my lord!"

The voices, and the jittering torchlight, passed by and were gone. The grip of the terror vanished with them.

After a long moment Jevalyn moaned something in Draenei and Ancasta curled up in a ball and sobbed. Around them both, the sounds of quiet weeping and whispered curses in the thick darkness.

Finally Ancasta sat up slowly and scrubbed the tears from her face with the ragged sleeve of her robe. It wasn't pitch black - there were a few guttering torches in crude sconces on the stanchion supports of the ceiling outside the cell, and the weak yellow light flickered into the cell with the fluttering of the light breeze. In that light, she could see a lot of people in the cell with her, and among them not a single male of any race. They were all females. Night Elves, Draenei, Humans, though she saw only a few of her own folk among them and only two Dwaven women.

It was icy cold, so much so that there were icicles coating the walls and forming from the ceiling. The floor was of rough-cut black rock, slick with ice rime, with a few more or less flattened boulders scattered around presumably to be used as seating.

"What is this place?" Ancasta asked. She felt at her belt and found her potion pouches, Fireball wand and herb satchel were gone, as well as her dagger and staff. In the flickering light she saw Jevalyn checking for her own Shamanic talismans and finding herself similarly divested of her magical trappings. Around them, the other women were doing the same, the dawning horror that they were defenseless stealing over every face.

No. What had Owl said once, when she had first come to Stormwind? Her true weapons could not be taken away.

She pushed herself to her feet and staggered over to the bars of the cell, stumbling over several protesting fellow inmates. Peering through the bars, she saw a rat creeping through the bars of the cell across the corridor and with a sudden rush of power a burst of light and arcane symbols flashed all around her and the rat. The rat squealed and fell dead.

Her cry of relief was drowned out by the startling howls of protest that erupted from the cell across the corridor. In a blink there was a rush at the bars of the other cell and several large green-skinned and tawny bodies flung themselves at the bars while screeches of profanity in Goblin voices grated in the air.

"Frag it! What are you trying to do, kill us?" bellowed a stentorian but still female voice over the others. Loud clangs and thuds sounded in the darkness and the sounds of shoving and curses. Ancasta, Jevalyn and many others in their cell hurried to peer through the bars. Across the corridor, angry and contemptuous eyes peered back at them. In the torchlight, they saw green skin, tusks, hooves, leather clothing, armor, and the sharp noses of several Goblins. Then several of them were shoved aside and glowing green eyes framed by long silky white hair and sharply pointed long ears glared steadily at them.

"Should have known," the Blood Elf muttered. "Kaldorei twig-chewers and their retarded idiots."

"At least our captor had the good sense to tell us apart," one of the Night Elven women said in a droll voice beside Ancasta. "Or he might have returned to find all of us dead and you sitting in the corner in a state of sated bliss, Sindorei. I'd be wary were I you, Horde kin. Never take your eyes off of her, or her triumphant sneer may be the last thing you see in this life."

"Silence your mouthings, Kaldorei," the Blood Elf hissed through the bars. "You made me this way, now rot with the knowledge!"

Ancasta listened to the Night Elf and the Blood Elf arguing for another minute or two more, then wriggled her way through the gathered throng and began to explore the cell. She found one of her own folk doing the same.

"Twinkle Screwberry," the other girl said with a giggle as she offered her hands. Bright purple hair was pulled up into two ponytails on the other girl's head, and she wore a blue and green robe of Elven workmanship. "My parents were hardware merchants, when Gnomeregan fell they were in Ratchet on a trading trip. They got as far as Teldrassil before they ran out of money, and that's where I was born."

"I think my Grandfather might have known the Screwberrys," Ancasta said, nodding. "I'm Ancasta Copperbolt, I was born in Mount Ratchet which some of my parents' friends founded in Dun Morogh after Gnomeregan."

Twinkle nodded and they both looked around the black, icy walls of the cell. "So... mage?"

Ancasta nodded. "Yep. In training to be."

Twinkle looked a little nervous for a moment. "Don't look at me funny, please, but... Warlock for me. And I've been prospecting a lot, it's the family business, I've been learning jewelcrafting on the side." She said that last in a rush, as if trying to lessen the impact of her declaration as a Warlock or assuring Ancasta that she was doing something respectable in addition to the dark magics of her calling.

Ancasta wasn't going to judge, not in the present circumstances, though she didn't understand such a draw to the more evil side of magic. "So any idea what's going on here? Where we are?"

Twinkle chewed her bottom lip for a moment, then shook her head. "I've got a theory, but only that. I've seen no proof, but then I wouldn't until I was actually going through it. And then it would be too late to tell anyone."

"Huh." Ancasta drifted over to the far end of the cell, Twinkle following. They came to the bars again and Ancasta gave them an experimental tug. They didn't give, of course. "So spill."

Twinkle made a little noise of reluctance, glanced back over her shoulder as the argument continued to rage between the cells, the Blood Elf and the Night Elf taunting each other still. "Honestly? It's a magic-user keeping us here. Or I should say, a Warlock. I saw the sigils on his armor, and I can recognize the signs. He's a real high-up though. Really, really high-up. And this guy isn't even the one pulling the strings. He's just one of the lieutenants. And I don't even think catching all of us was his objective. I think we were just windfall. Given that, I'm thinking we're - well, sort of like a herd of cattle. Or a harem."

Ancasta whirled to look at her fellow Gnome aghast. "You mean he's going to - "

Twinkle blinked at her, then seemed to catch up. "Oh! No! Great Toolbox, No! Rape is sort of beside the point for someone like him, and anyway - you and me? The logistics alone - Eeewww. No. Hurts just to think about it. No. I meant that he's going to kill us to make soul shards. After that - instant army, if he wants. Use the soul shards to conjure Doomguards."

Ancasta shivered and abruptly turned to sit against the wall. "And then what?"

Twinkle shrugged. "I dunno. Whatever he wants. Go attack something else, I'd guess. As for where we are - far away from where we were. One minute I'm in the reagent shop in Booty Bay, next I'm waking up here."

"I was just waking up in Stormwind," Ancasta answered slowly.

Twinkle nodded. Then she went to the bars and tugged them herself, then stopped and looked back at Ancasta. "Well, enough of this jawbone symphony. This place is boring. We're both obviously upwardly mobile, ambitious young Gnomish girls. No sense just sitting here listening to the Elves and all the sibling rivalry. Let's motor!"

Ancasta laughed humorlessly at that. "And go where? We're kind of locked up at the moment."

Twinkle smiled challengingly. "Honey, we're Gnomes."

Ancasta blinked and realized that Twinkle was standing outside the bars of the cell. "How did you -"

"There's not a bar or a lock or a cage or a web anywhere that can hold us," Twinkle said with a giggle. "These bars were made to hold Humans and Draenei and the other Bigger races. Not us. There's a hole here big enough to drive a mechanotank through."

Ancasta looked where Twinkle was pointing and sure enough there was a gap between the wall and the first bar more than large enough to wiggle through. She slid through easily.

"You girls have the right idea," said a Goblin voice in front of them. "Hold on! I can - mmrph! Oh drat me I can't get through!"

Twinkle smiled at that and stepped over to pat the outflung dark green hand straining through the bars. "Keep trying. I'm sure you'll find a way to shoehorn your ego and your cowardice through if you try," she said with false sweetness. Then she turned to Ancasta.

"They went that way," Ancasta said, pointing down the corridor between the cells.

"Yup. Let's go!"

"Anca! Don't! We shouldn't split up!" Jevalyn called out through the bars.

Ancasta rushed to her as the Draenei shaman knelt and reached through the bars to her. "I'll be back. We're going to go see what's going on. I've still got my magic!"

"We all do - but Anca, if they find you - "Jevalyn's eyes were huge with fright.

Ancasta smiled a little shakily. "Yeah. Well, it's going to happen sooner or later, right? I want to see what we have to look forward to. Maybe Owl and Stoneblade and the others are here, we can escape." With that, she turned and ran to Twinkle's side.

"Owl?" Twinkle asked as they peeked around the corner.

"OwlDance. He's a cook," Ancasta said, nodding, with complete faith in her best friend.

Twinkle turned to give her a look as if she thought her new friend was crazy.

Ancasta saw it and shrugged. "People love his boar ribs. And his Goretusk Liver Pie."

Twinkle rolled her eyes at that. "Who knows, maybe the Warlock will eat himself to death."

They scampered around the corner and out of sight.

-O-O-

It was well after sunset when OwlDance, Kill Mechaswarm and a ragged lot of Stormwind's Guardsmen finally stumbled up the cobblestones and came to the small square that housed the entrance to the communal Guild Hall in the Dwarven District. Torches lit up the entire square, and Dwarven warriors who had arrived by the tram from Ironforge were on guard now, along with shaken remnants of the Royal Guard. Four high Paladins also stood watch with them, to verify identities as the search parties returned.

The Dwarven District had been relatively untouched save for a raiding party of Orcs who had raced through the streets overturning carts and market stalls and snatching up several people. Those who had died trying to defend had revived normally, and were stunned at the gore and destruction in the Trade District square.

"I'm beyond exhausted," Owl said softly to his Guild Master. "But there's no way I can sleep here. I just can't, Kill."

"Yes you can and you will, Rogue," the Gnome said firmly. "We are on the defensive now and I need every asset I have at hand. I cannot divide my forces simply so that you and SkyBright can go sleep in a tree in the forest."

Owl nodded silently and saw his fellow Night Elf flinch at the Guild Master's harsh words. They had found the young Hunter huddled between casks of beer in the cellar of the Pig 'n Whistle Tavern, shivering and in complete withdrawal. Owl didn't know how the boy had managed to collect himself enough to come with them, much less to put in almost five hours of work helping them search for survivors. OwlDance wondered how he'd escaped from Teldrassil, for surely his family could not know he had crossed the sea and come to Stormwind.

They climbed the steps and entered the Guild Hall, and heard the murmur of voices raised in conversation. As they came out into the Guild Hall's immense stone-walled room, they saw that many of the resurrected survivors had made themselves busy helping the Dwarves to set up bedrolls and masses of purloined cushions and pillows for sleeping. Oil lamps glowed from every sconce on the walls, with many making the scattered tables bright. Though it was only just crossing into Autumn a fire had been laid in the small hearth in the corner and a giant stew pot was bubbling gently over the fire. The baker from the Trade District had somehow survived and had gone to help the Dwarven bakers in a nearby Inn, bringing with him a wagonload of provisions. Out of all Stormwind, its harbor and the immediate area of Elwynn outside the gates, barely two hundred folk had survived.

Kill immediately made his way through the lines of bedrolls to the table against one wall where two other Guild Masters were trying to put the scattered pieces of the story together and come up with a plan of attack. Owl shook his head at that. The Gnome was at least three times his age and yet kept the most ungodly hours in the Known World, could work from dawn to far past dark and even into the next morning and did so on a regular basis. Owl honestly did not know how his leader did it, and didn't know if he admired him or pitied him for it.

He and SkyBright got themselves something to eat and drink, then Owl had nowhere he had to be and no one to report to. He found an empty bedroll and sat staring down for long, blank moments at his blood-soaked purple leather boots in his hands after he took them off . He would need to find some of that particular dye to replace them. That shade of indigo was hard to ...

Kill grimaced as the Night Elf tumbled over bonelessly over the ruined boots. They had no healers save the one who had survived with the King's party, but he knew his business. He checked to make sure there was no blood seeping through the long black hair, then grunted as he pulled and shoved the Elf down into a more comfortable sprawl on the bedroll. Unconsciousness from a pommel strike to the noggin wasn't sleep, but it was a better healer than shock. Taking the twin daggers from the Elf's belt and the throwing knives from their sheath, he piled them all in his own pack and pulled a blanket over the Elf.

"You've a lot to learn, Apprentice," he said sadly as he left the Elf to his unconsciousness.

-O-O-

When they came to a dank alcove Twinkle pulled Ancasta inside and looked up and down the corridor to be certain they wouldn't be disturbed.

"Game on," she said and visibly gathered her dark magic around her.

After a moment Ancasta realized she was casting some sort of armoring spell and understood. She straightened and cast Frost Armor, Arcane Intellect, and the newly-learned Dampen Magic spell. Twinkle began to chant under her breath and with a burst of dark unlight a leaping form as tall as Twinkle herself suddenly appeared beside her, gibbering softly as it bounced on its feet. It had glowing eyes and looked to Ancasta like some sort of demon. She edged away from it uneasily.

Twinkle smiled darkly at that. "This is my Imp, Mixlapagus."

Ancasta nodded to it and it swayed from side to side nervously, eyeing her warily.

"Get going," Twinkle said to the Imp and it turned to glare at her in offense.

"Ohhh sure, send the little guy," it rasped out, then skittered out and down the corridor ahead of them.

Ancasta watched it go and then followed Twinkle.

It soon became apparent to both of them that they were in some sort of natural cavern system that had been adapted for the use of the unknown Warlock. The walls and floors were of natural rough stone, worked by tools only when needed for some function such as doorways, holding cells, and similar. They passed through a labyrinth of dark cells holding rotting corpses, rats and worms and maggots hard at work to reduce them to their constituent elements. Twice they had to dodge aside and wriggle through the bars of cells to hide in the shadows among the corpses when Orc warriors tramped through the corridors.

"Why haven't they seen your demon?" Ancasta whispered as the last Orc stomped out of sight.

"When he doesn't want to be seen, no one sees him. And he's not a demon, he's an Imp. They get touchy about that kind of thing. More politics in demonology than the Dwarven High Council," Twinkle answered. She and Ancasta slipped back through the bars again and she paused to re-cast her Demon Skin spell. Ancasta did the same with Dampen Magic, which seemed to need to be re-done all the time. The Imp came bounding back, gibbering something in Demonic at his summoner.

"Main corridor ahead," Twinkle said as the Imp flipped in mid-air and bounced in impatience. "Go, Mix."

"This was NOT in my contract!" the Imp snapped, then flounced out ahead of them.

Twinkle sighed, shook her head. "Is it too late to switch to being a Druid? I'm still young."

Ancasta laughed at that and they crept forward.

It was indeed what seemed to be the main corridor. Orc guards were stationed at regular intervals at every doorway. The Imp jounced up the corridor, practically dancing and gibbering all the while, but no Orc so much as twitched at his presence.

By sheer luck the corridor was lined with tapestries. One creeping step at a time the two Gnomes slid along the wall behind the tapestries. A constant insistent but light breeze ruffled down the corridor, rustling the tapestries and sending the two girls almost into sneezing fits time and again. Ancasta was sure she'd come out of this with her hair half gray from the tension and stress - if she came out of this at all.

Twinkle tugged on her sleeve abruptly and a moment later seemed to vanish. Ancasta nearly panicked until her hand slid off into a void and she realized the tapestry they were currently behind also hid the entrance to a tiny, half-height, narrow shaft. She slid inside and felt Twinkle lean over to whisper in her ear.

"Some kind of doorway here," the Gnome Warlock said.

Before Ancasta could warn about creaking hinges, the door swung open and faint light and sounds came to her ears. She followed Twinkle blindly into the pitch darkness.

The sound of the door clicking closed behind them seemed to release at least three quarters of the tension. They slumped against the sides of the little tunnelway with mutual sighs of relief.

The Imp seemed to appear out of nowhere and bounced ahead of them, the faint light given off by his unearthly aura dimly lighting up a considerable space. Unlike the rest of the place they'd seen so far, this room seemed to be of carefully dressed and fitted stone, even down to an intricate and beautiful mosaic tile floor in black, silvery gray and red.

"What is this place?" Ancasta asked.

Twinkle looked around for a long moment, noted the hole in the domed ceiling, the perfectly round circumference, and the mosaic on the floor. "Ritual chamber."

Ancasta gulped. "Is this where they sacrifice people?"

Twinkle walked across the room, calling her Imp to walk in front of her so she could read the arcane symbols on the floor. "What is it you think we do as Warlocks?"

"Things I wouldn't do for anything, much less magic," Ancasta answered. "Killing animals is bad enough."

Twinkle laughed shortly at that. "You really are a country cousin."

"I've seen what the Death Knights do to people," Ancasta answered, a little defensively.

"The Death Knights are tools," Twinkle spat contemptuously, turning back to her abruptly. "They're the herdmasters. That's all the Alliance is to them - herds of cattle. That's all any mortal is to a Warlock."

"Is that what you think?" Ancasta flung across the circle at Twinkle. "Look me in the eye - you can do that, we're both Gnomes! You don't have to look up at me like you do with the Biggers. Eye to eye, Gnome to Gnome, exile to exile - am I cattle to you?"

The Imp gibbered at that, hopping up and down at Twinkle's side as the Warlock stiffened at the words and clenched her hands. "Yes, you're cattle! Just like the Dwarves and their goats! I'll take your soul and give it to the Warlock, I'll prove my loyalty and my willingness to do whatever it takes for my magic!" Then her eyes suddenly flashed red and she hissed something in Demonic to the Imp, who screeched and shook his head vigorously in denial.

"Is this REALLY necessary?" the Imp warbled, then lifted its hands and began to gather its magic.

Ancasta snapped her hands up and felt the Fireball gathering in her hand. It shot out to impact on Twinkle's chest as the Imp screeched and flung its own Fireball at her. She felt it hit and scorch her insides. Long hours of hard-fought battles against forest spiders, wolves and bears swept over her then, her hands and her magic responding with cold efficiency. The Frost Nova froze Twinkle to the floor even as she released a Curse of Agony. Ancasta doubled over clutching her chest as it seemed like her lungs were wrenching themselves apart. Fighting her way back upright, she raised her hand and gathered her anger and betrayal, felt the magic respond, felt it gather, felt it leap across the space of the circle. Twinkle cried out as the Fire Blast exploded from inside her body outward.

"You're not going to stop me," Twinkle husked out. She straightened with some difficulty in her scorched state and held up both hands over her head. Ancasta watched with growing horror as Twinkle seemed to decay before her eyes, her flesh shrivelling and outlining the bones of her face and the tendons of her hands and wrists in stark relief, her skin mottling and crackling as it dehydrated. But even as she descended into this state of horror she glowed with even more power, shaped it into a twining lash and flung it across the circle at Ancasta.

Ancasta felt it hit and felt dark icy claws rip into her soul and began to shred and pull and tear it from her body. She screamed as she fell to her knees, but forced her hands up and called upon the last of her magic. Arcane Missiles began to fire from her shaking hand, dividing into two and impacting in three jolting bursts on the decaying form of the Gnome Warlock.

The Imp shrieked and vanished as what had been Twinkle Screwberry fell to the stone floor, a scorched and smoking husk.


	7. Chapter 7

Part 7

OwlDance sat on the floor of the tram car as it hurtled toward Ironforge, the ache in his head and the lump under his hair a glum reminder of how useless he really was. He supposed he should be grateful his Guild master had given him back his prized twin daggers, and still thought him worthy of the fine matched blades.

"Stop it, boy. Moping doesn't help your looks and sulking is the province of children," Kill said at his shoulder.

"You hit me," Owl accused.

"I hit you all the time in training," the Gnome muttered back. With OwlDance sitting they were eye to eye and the hard dark eyes of the Master Rogue gave no sympathy.

Owl hunched down further into himself at that and ignored his Master as they whooshed through the glass tunnel underneath the lake.

Mechaswarm snorted a humorless laugh beside him, then tugged on one long backswept ear. Owl shook his head vigorously to dislodge the Master Rogue's hand. "Either you're mooning over Jevalyn again or you've done the unthinkable and fallen for the Copperbolt girl."

"Aren't you worried about them at all? And even if I did fall for Ancasta why would you care? Wouldn't you be more inclined to say she'd be a good influence on me?" Owl retorted.

Mechaswarm did laugh at that and shook his head. "Good influence? Amergin Copperbolt's granddaughter? The girl's going to be a one-woman army if the apple hasn't fallen too far from the tree. If anything, you'll be the good influence. Now stop the sulking. You're not too old for me to spank, and I've no qualms about doing it in front of the Jenkins boys." The Gnome paused for a moment, then glanced at him again. "You didn't answer my question. Are you mooning over Jevalyn again? Because if you are I can't take you on this mission."

Owl said nothing but got to his feet as the tram jolted to a stop.

-O-O-

The Jenkins clan was a strange family, and no one was certain if any of them were actually related by blood. It was entirely possible they'd all adopted the surname Jenkins as some kind of group eccentricity. The only commonalities between them was that they were all Human and they were all elite veteran warriors of one sort or another. Several were in service to the Church as Paladins, several more were former Guardsmen, a few were known Warlocks or Mages. While only two of their number actually belonged to Kill Mechaswarm's Guild officially, it was not unusual when the Master put out a call for swords that the entire clan would show up armored and ready to go.

They met the Jenkins family in the Stonefire Tavern as the family lived in and operated out of Ironforge. Four of them had showed up at Mechaswarm's call this time, but along with them sat a veritable Goddess-sent windfall of far-flung Guildmates who had not been among them in many moons - the Human Warlock Zarissa, and the Human Rogues Leonydus and Zachius. As they were settling in around the table and calling for drinks from the tavern's bartender, the Night Elf Hunter StalkingWolf ghosted in the door on silent feet.

"The Alterac Mountains, Master," StalkingWolf said quietly in answer to Kill's query as to his whereabouts lately. As all the chairs around the table were taken the Hunter joined OwlDance in sitting on the tavern's wide hearth. His gray wolf lay down at his feet and his barn owl flitted up to perch on the tavern's door lintel. "I've been summoned home to Teldrassil, but I was planning to return to Stormwind to speak to you before I did so. It's lucky chance we are both here today."

Owl turned to give his fellow Elf a long look and whispered a question in their mother tongue. StalkingWolf looked startled, then nodded once in answer.

"Longears business," one of the Jenkins boys muttered.

"Care to share with the class, boys?" Zarissa called over.

Owl opened his mouth to answer but StalkingWolf gestured him to silence and smiled up at the Human Warlock. "It is indeed Elven family business, my dear. Quite literally. Owl simply inquired whether I was recalled home to present myself to the Frostsabers as a potential rider. I have not yet been granted that honor, yet now the Circle calls me home for just that."

"All to the good," Kill said before anyone else could question further. "But can you wait a few days? We could use you on this raid."

"It is possible," StalkingWolf said. "But Master, first I bring news. As I was leaving Alterac, I paused at Ravenholdt to pay my respects to Master Fahrad. He charged me with delivering a message to you. I do not know what the message contains but he said it is to do with the recent attack on the Merchant Guild masters."

The Hunter reached into his hunting pouch and brought out a folded parchment sealed with Ravenholdt's sign imprinted in the red wax. Mechaswarm hopped down from his chair, took the letter and clapped the Hunter on the shoulder in thanks.

Beside StalkingWolf, OwlDance felt his whole world silently crashing down around him.

But his Master did not open the letter, merely tucked it into the inner pocket of his black leather vest and returned to the matter at hand. He began to lay out what he and the other surviving Guild Masters had pieced together from the fatal attack on Stormwind only the day before.

None of them noticed when Owl got to his feet to stretch and wandered back into the Tavern's kitchen. It was an hour later when Kill thought to wonder where his Apprentice had gone, and an hour after that to realize OwlDance had vanished.

-O-O-

Flitting from shadow to shadow in the hushed and shock-numbed streets of the Dwarven District, OwlDance felt the terrible scream of betrayal threatening to burst from his throat. His mind whirled with thoughts, accusations, a dozen questions all spinning down to one word - why. Avoiding the Trade District and its blood-soaked square, he took the street beside the canal and crept into a narrow doorway. The smells of ale and Dwarven stout wafted through the air from the barrels behind the crude wooden bar, and the Dwarven bartender barely looked up at him as he sharpened an axe. Owl slipped out the taproom's back door and into the tiny weed-infested courtyard and alleyway beyond.

He sprinted across to the tiny inn, really more of an ancient house with an extra room to rent out to those not looking to answer questions. The woman who acted as innkeeper sneered at him as he came in the door, then muttered something dark into her tankard of cheap wine. The place was dingy at best, dirty and foul smelling at worst. The rains had brought rot to the wood of the walls and fouled the plaster with mold, and rats and roaches seemed to be permanent residents. The stairs creaked ominously under Owl's weight but he didn't care. There was no sense hiding his approach, and he didn't want to.

He flung open the crude wood-plank door at the top of the stairs and was across the room with his hands at the other's throat in a blur. His momentum carried them both back until the Elven man in his hands hit the wall, rattling the entire room with the impact.

"You lied to me!" OwlDance growled.

The pale, thin face shifted into soft laughter and in one motion the armored arms broke Owl's hold and flung the Night Elf across the room. OwlDance hit the wall but landed in a crouch, drew his blades and leaped at the other Elf.

The Elf lifted a hand and clenched his fist and OwlDance stumbled and fell in mid-leap, choking, dropping his knives to clutch at the invislble claws tearing at his throat and cutting off his breath.

The Elf laughed softly again and crossed to the room's one wooden chair, sat down and stretched, and casually crossed his legs at the ankle. Fine black armor, a combination of darkened mail and blackened plate, clung to his lean graceful form. The dark leather of his pants outlined long muscles and the intricate tooling of his boots showed magical sigils embroidered and carved in the leather. Long ivory white hair cascaded around his shoulders and over the quillons of the long broadsword glowing red through the slits in the scabbard. His green eyes looked on the choking Night Elf with considerable amusement, a sly grin playing on the thin face as the Rogue struggled to breathe.

"Lied to you? In what way?" he asked in a light voice. "I paid you good coin for your work. But trust a Kaldorei to confuse business and pleasure."

Abruptly the Strangulate spell released and OwlDance gasped in a breath, falling forward over his knees, dark spots dancing in front of his eyes and a roaring of his blood in his ears. He pushed himself upright and sprang up from where he knelt in one motion, pulled and threw one of his throwing knives at the smirking Elf. It hit dead center of the Elf's chest and shattered on impact with the magical blackened plate armor. Shards of tempered steel sprayed around the room.

Suddenly the black-clad Elf flowed to his feet and shoved OwlDance back again, pinning him bodily to the wall and catching the Rogue's hands and digging his thumbs into the tendons of the wrists. OwlDance choked on his cry of pain as his hands went numb and his daggers fell to the floor.

"What did you think you were playing with, Kaldorei?" the Elf hissed at him, green eyes flashing suddenly red. "One of your own? Do you think for one second that one such as me would want one such as you for anything other than a business transaction? You were a whore in bed and a whore when you dropped that poison into the Merchant Guildmasters' wine cups. You sold yourself for pleasure and pride. But you Kaldorei are so weak and corrupt you will sell yourselves for coin of any kind."

"And you'll only sell yourself for blood?" OwlDance snarled back.

The smirk reappeared. "And the power it brings me."

OwlDance struggled in his hold but the laughing Blood Elf simply evaded his every attempt to kick or wrench his arms free. The Blood Elf stepped back abruptly and sketched a glowing white sigil in the air, and instantly OwlDance's hands and feet were encased in thick shackles of ice, forcing him to the floor again.

"So many possibilities," the Blood Elf mused in a purr. "You on your knees. But then you always end up that way, don't you?"

The door burst inward with a howl of power and hurtling through the explosion a small black blur leaped upon the Blood Elf in deadly silence. OwlDance saw the greenish shine of poison on the silver glittering blades a split-second before the Blood Elf gave a gurgling cry and fell in a spray of blood to the floor.

"Zarissa!" Kill Mechaswarm husked out as he leaped away from the Blood Elf's body.

"Oh let me at that son of a -" Zarissa snarled at the doorway.

"Owl first!" StalkingWolf said as he followed their leader to the stunned and terrified Rogue.

"Hold still, honeybunch," Zarissa said as she came to him and looked at the ice shackles around his hands and feet. With a whispered spell the shackles burst under a sudden gout of fire magic. "Kill?"

"Get rid of that filth," the Gnome Guildmaster growled. "Owl! Look at me!"

OwlDance looked down at his freed hands, dropped his head onto his Master's small shoulder, and gave one long terrible howl of grief-stricken, soul-rending agony as Zarissa began to cast her dread demonic magics.

"That bastard's going to pay for this for a long time, I promise," Zarissa vowed as the Gnome and the Hunter held the grieving Rogue.

-O-O-

"His name was BloodThorn," OwlDance said listlessly, his voice rough with exhaustion and strained from his grief. "I thought he was Kaldorei."

Zarissa and StalkingWolf pretended they didn't see the fresh tears starting down his cheeks and the furtive sniffle. They were sitting on the steps of the Cathedral where the little group had wandered in a daze after Zarissa had gotten done binding the Blood Elf's soul into a soulstone. Kill stood on the steps below them, arms crossed across his chest as he watched his apprentice. He was deeply worried about the younger Rogue, and wondering who else among his Guild had been compromised in similar manner.

"How much did you hear?" OwlDance asked.

"Enough," Kill said. He took the two steps up to stand at the Night Elf's knee and tugged on a lock of the black hair. "You know you are not allowed to take contracts that I have not approved. You agreed to that when you became my apprentice."

"But it wasn't -" OwlDance started.

"He paid you, one way or another," Kill said implacably.

OwlDance dropped his gaze from his Master's and nodded.

"Kill -" Zarissa began.

"That Horde tried to murder him, Zari," Mechaswarm said in a growl. "He had my apprentice on the floor in Ice Shackles, trying to decide how to kill him."

"It's more than that," OwlDance said wretchedly. "He - BloodThorn - I swear I didn't know he was a Death Knight. Not until today. I thought he was - I don't know, maybe a Sentinel. Or a Paladin. At least, I used to think so. Until he asked me to kill the Merchant Guildmasters."

"And you still trusted him after that?" Kill demanded.

Owl shrugged helplessly, then nodded, too ashamed to look his Master in the eye.

Kill glared at him for a long moment, then shook his head and reached up to rub his eyes wearily. He dropped to sit on the step at Owl's feet. "Ah hell. What a mess. Whatever possessed you - no, don't answer that. You're young, and you Elves are as randy as rabbits at your age."

"You make it sound like a bad thing," StalkingWolf said dryly.

Kill snorted a laugh at that, then looked back up at his apprentice still silently weeping. "You got attached to him, eh? The Horde?"

"He wasn't a Horde to me!" Owl insisted in defense. "He was -"

"Beautiful? Obviously highly trained and highly skilled, yet endlessly interested in the goings-on of a leatherworker and a cook?" Kill supplied. "And I'll bet was all shocked with wonder when you showed him how you could sneak unseen into a room full of people and pick their pockets clean even of stray threads. Made you feel invincible because he cared for you."

Owl nodded reluctantly.

Kill made an exasperated sound at that and glared at his apprentice. "Well, I suppose congratulations are in order. You've just acquired your first life-long regret."

"Kill, you have ice water for blood," Zarissa muttered at her Guild master.

"And I'm a sucker for strays," Kill returned.

-O-O-

"So, how are we to find them?" Leonydus said an hour later, once more in the Stonefire Tavern in Ironforge.

Mechaswarm sat back in his chair and looked down into the depths of his Human-sized mug of Thunderbrew. He sat silent for a moment, then back up and around at his Guildmates gathered around the table. "Have you ever noticed that when you are out hunting or clearing out a bandit camp or going through the Defias infestation in Deadmines, you have a sense always of where your fellows are? If you become separated you can find them easily, even in confusing terrain or cave systems, you can still find them. It's as if you had a map and their positions were written upon it with a glowing dot, and all you had to do was follow it to them."

The Jenkins boys looked uncomfortable at this, but nodded. Zarissa, Leonydus and Zachius did the same.

"I thought that was simply something given to us by Elune," StalkingWolf said beside OwlDance. "I didn't know it was common to the rest of the world's races."

"It is," Kill said with a brief nod.

"Yet another pact made with mortals by the Gods?" Zarissa asked.

Kill shrugged. "That I don't know. And I don't know who you would ask, since Father Patraic is lost to us at the moment. But I think we can use it to our advantage now, and find our lost women. I found Wasichu's rifle on the steps of the Cathedral yesterday. It's a custom-made Draenei rifle, with his name in Draenei runes on the stock. But Wasichu's body was not among the dead in the entry hallway. I suspect Jevalyn, Ancasta and many other magic-users were within the Cathedral proper, while Wasichu and others were defending by shooting out the front door when the Horde came. Wasichu and I have spent a lot of time hunting Horde together. And something in me tells me he's north - far north. Not Alterac or Hillsbrad north, further still. I think he's in Northrend."

"And you're counting on Wasichu being held in the same place the mages are being held?" Zachius asked skeptically.

"Yes, or near to. The Death Knights are holding his sister, his only living relative. Jevalyn says jump and he says how high," Kill said with a smirk. "Wherever he is, if he isn't with her he's trying desperately to get to her. And I will be able to find him."

The Jenkins all looked at each other, clearly only half-believing their Guild Master's claims. Leonydus and Zachius looked thoughtful and not entirely convinced.

"Northrend's no place for green younglings," Leonydus said at last, obviously trying to be dipolomatic, but just as obviously meaning OwlDance sitting silent and pale beside his Master.

Kill sighed. "I know."

Owl looked up at his Master at that.

"Circumstances are not making for easy decisions," Kill said, looking around the table. "I'll make a decision on that after Owl and I have talked. For the moment, that's the plan. I suggest that if any of you will need supplies for this trip that you avail yourself of the vendors. I want to leave at midnight."

-O-O-

"You're in no shape for this," Mechaswarm said in the shadows under a stairway on Ironforge's Great Forge concourse. "Even on the best day of your life at your current level of skill you wouldn't be up for this. This is not a slight on you - one day you will be equal to this, and if you're not I'll hang up my knives and go home to Gnomeregan and let the damned Troggs have me. One day, you're going to be my greatest work. But that day isn't yet. And right now you're shattered."

OwlDance nodded silently.

Mechaswarm put a hand on the hunched, muscular shoulder. "Boy. I will bring them home. One way or another."

Owl nodded again. "I guess now you know I haven't been chasing Jevalyn all this time," he tried to joke.

Mechaswarm laughed softly at that and tugged on the nearest long ear. "No, you haven't. And now, I wish you had. Now she would be a good influence on you. The Copperbolt girl... I'd suggest you learn to hide behind her. I think you two will be together for a long time."

"Am I always going to be hiding behind Gnomes?" Owl asked as he got to his feet.

"No. Not always," Kill said. "Now come on. Finespindle is a good man. While I'm gone, you will be making me a new set of dark leathers. I think I'm probably going to need them."


	8. Chapter 8

Part 8

Hard realities make for hard neccessities. She thought her grandfather must have said that once, sometime long ago. She wondered if he'd said it first as he fled from Gnomeregan with her parents, her mother heavily pregnant and her father shepherding his entire Gadgetarium staff as they saved what they could of the engineering history of the Gnome race.

Her parents and their fellow refugees liked to call her generation "the hope of Gnomeregan, the future of Azeroth."

The charred corpse of Twinkle Screwberry put the lie to that. She wasn't the hope of Gnomeregan, or the future of anything. She had killed a fellow Gnome. No matter what Twinkle was going to do to her, or what she had become under the influence of her magic, she was still a Gnome. She, too, had been the "hope of Gnomeregan" and caretaker of their race's dreams of returning home.

She bowed her head for one last moment, closed her eyes briefly. "I'll get word back to your parents."

That was all she had time to say, that implied promise of Gnomish connection and accountability. She turned and ran back to the ritual chamber's half-height door and crept out.

She'd have hell to pay from somebody for this day's work. But for now, Ancasta Copperbolt had other fish to fry.

-O-O-

Ancasta heard the Warlock's voice as she approached the open archway of another cavern room. There were Orcs to either side of the hallway and her heart was pounding so loudly she wondered they didn't hear it. She slid sideways behind the tapestries all along the corridor, one hand holding her nose so she wouldn't sneeze from the dust. There was no way she could get to the door of the little cavern itself, the tapestries ended some ten feet from the door. But the unadorned stone walls bounced the sound and the natural acoustics of the room beyond made for fairly clear hearing.

The Warlock was not alone.

"We are nearly prepared," said a Trollish voice.

"Indeed. This last attack on Stormwind netted us a considerable unexpected bonus. Thirty-five female magic-users of the Alliance. We have also caught some twenty females of the Horde, all of magical temperament, from various outposts and settlements. Each shall be rendered down for our use. Two or three more raids of such caliber and we shall have all we need for the completion of the Ascendant's plans."

"You mean further raids on the cities?" asked an Orcish voice.

"Two only. Ironforge and Theramore. These are soft targets and will not be difficult. Afterward, if all goes well, we will return to Stormwind and Orgrimar and deal with the remaining populations. At that point, we will have the resources to overwhelm any resistance. The Ascendant has not told me what he intends beyond that. We must be patient."

The Orcish voice laughed shortly. "Dalaran."

"It is always possible. But a direct attack even with such resources would be folly. And Dalaran cares nothing for the other cities. They may see what is happening - we're hardly going about this in a quiet manner - but they have so far made no moves to counter us," the Warlock answered.

"Nothing to gain in it," the Trollish voice agreed.

"There is no sense in wasting resources needlessly, Xener'khan. Even the leaders of Dalaran know this."

"The Ascendant seems to like attacking and taking targets of little worth," the Orcish voice rumbled.

"Say rather he takes targets of little worth that in total give him a vast strategic advantage," the Warlock answered. "Stormwind and Ironforge, for example. At one stroke we eliminate the major hubs of commerce and transport for the Alliance in the Eastern Kingdoms. The Alliance will be reeling, and struggling to reestablish such hubs in other settlements. Smaller raids can then be sent to decimate those settlements, further disrupting the Alliance. The Human and Dwarven kingdoms will be in disarray, their leaders exiled if not eliminated. The Guilds will be scattered, their officers without adequate intelligence or communications, their leaders hunted. Both cities will become strongholds of our forces. Orgrimar will soon follow, Silvermoon and Thunder Bluff. Without reliable long-range transport and communications, the Alliance and Horde both will be in ruins. They have overextended themselves, and can no longer defend so much territory effectively. And thus, lands free for the taking from which we can carve up Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms to our liking."

"What of the Kaldorei?" The Troll (presumably this "Xener'khan") asked. "There have been no raids on the tree-city."

"That we know of. I am not the Ascendant's only weapon, and I am hardly privy to his grand designs save my particular part in them."

"I'd worry who'd be waiting to stab me in the back," the Orcish voice grumbled. "You trust in the Ascendant too much, Cyridon."

"Ha! You think I haven't taken measures?"

It was enough. Ancasta took a slow, deep breath and began to creep back the way she'd come.

-O-O-

She was about halfway back to the holding cell when everything went pear-shaped.

She'd never know if the Orc guard simply saw the hem of her robe and her boots under the tasseled fringe of a tapestry, or if they saw her moving behind it, or if they erupted due to something else altogether. With an abruptness that shattered the silence one of the Orc guards gave out a bellow and started yelling in Orcish, and the tapestry she was behind at that moment was ripped aside. She stared up for one endless, time-frozen moment of utter terror, and then she shrieked and acted purely on instinct - dashing between the legs of the Orc in front of her and racing down the torch-lit passageway.

In a breath, the Orc who'd found her was screeching to his fellows and she heard the cries of alarm and the pounding of iron-clad boots on the stone floor.

Long generations of evolution to such a small size had bred preservation drives akin to rats into the Gnome species, and when under threat of imminent death Ancasta was no different from any other of her race. She dodged, dove under tables, into crevasses in the rock, and leaped up to dash away again when the Orcs were busy trying to dig her out from under a chair. Cornered, her hands came up and glowed with blue fire and an explosion of Frost magic burst all around her, freezing the Orcs' feet to the floor. She ran again, into a corridor she and Twinkle had bypassed before, and found herself racing up a flight of spiral stairs.

Gloomy overcast daylight burst all around her as she all but flew up and out onto the turret walk. Icy stone beneath her feet, a howling storm of snow all around her, but she was in free air!

But then she saw the other group of Orcish guards who began to run from the turret guard house no more than fifty yards distant, and heard the yells of the guards she had frozen to the floor behind her. She ran to the wall of the turret walk, jumped up into the crenellations, and looked down.

And down, and down, and down... a sheer mountainside deep with snow, the treeline far below.

She gulped.

Then turned around to face the Orcs as they pounded up to her. She lifted her hands and began to gather her magic.

"Your mothers were crocolisks and your fathers smelled of elderberries!" she yelled at them as loud as she could, then triggered the Frost Bolt behind her toward the snow below -

And in the burst of blue light, dived off the wall and into freefall.

-O-O-

"Anca! Anca? Where are you? I can't - where are you? Oh gods -"

Ancasta came to consciousness to the muffled shouts in the darkness. She was cold, so very very cold, and she couldn't move.

"Anca! Please answer me! Night is falling and if I can't find you - Gods! Where are you?"

She was cold right through to her bones. But she was alive and - maybe she could -

Somewhere far away, somewhere back what felt like a lifetime ago, she could hear Jennea's voice, "Magic is half talent and half will, but one is not dependent on the other. Without will, magic talent has no direction and no usefulness. Yet with trained will alone, you can apply yourself to any endeavor and expect to succeed."

And right now, her will was to be warm.

Somehow she reached within herself one last time, and her hands began to glow red.

-O-O-

The roar of the Fireball blasting up through the snow behind him threw Wasichu to his knees in the remains of the avalanche. It rocketed up past the treetops and burst like a Darkmoon Faire fireworks display in the thick clouds, sparkling off the billions of whirling snowflakes in the swiftly gathering gloom.

He stared up at it, then whirled and stumbled over shattered treetrunks, small boulders, and deep drifts of loose snow to the small new crater only a few feet from where he'd begun his frantic search for the tiny body he'd seen diving off the fortress's wall.

"Anca!" He fell to his knees again at the side of the crater and dug out the fall of loose snow, his hand caught on golden linen, and then a spray of hair as red as flame. He reached in, dug out the tiny body, and scooped her up.

"Oh holy Naaru, thank you!" Wasichu whispered as he clutched the little limp body of the Gnome to his chest. "Snippet?"

Ancasta groaned softly and her teeth began to chatter as she began to shiver violently.

Wasichu laughed weakly, pulled the ties of his rough fur tunic open with one hand and tucked her inside the ragged velvet coat against the warmth of his blue-skinned chest. He tightened the furs around him again, enough to keep her safely inside as he moved. Then he caught up the bow and arrows he'd made for himself, glanced back at the black fortress against the darkening sky, and fled into the shelter of the trees.

-O-O-

"Still - still so - cold."

"I know, I know. But we can't stop, Snippet. We have to keep going, at least for a little while longer. I've got to find us some meat."

"Let - let me. Can - every time - in Elwynn - the cows follow me - "

Wasichu laughed weakly at that, if only to hide his own dread. She was delirious, hypothermic. "The cows follow everyone in Elwynn, dearheart."

"You wan' - go back - Jev'lyn?"

Wasichu patted the lightly squirming lump of Gnome under the furs across his chest. For a moment he couldn't speak, and when he did his voice was rough with pain. "We will. Soon. Jeva... ah gods..."

"Owl - come get us."

Wasichu shook his head and looked up as the last glow of weak light faded in the west and night fell. "I'd kill for some of his boar ribs right now, and that's a fact. And some of Stoneblade's ale. And a good tale from Kill, and some dancing girls..."

"Jev'lyn - get mad."

"She makes it her mission to question my fun." Wasichu smiled a true smile at that. His sister was grace personified, a blade of the spirit that cut so swiftly, so much wiser than he for all he was ten years her senior.

"You got - uh, what is it? The red one... w' Peacebloom and Silverleaf... "

It took Wasichu a moment to remember what she meant, then understanding dawned. The Apprentice formulation of a minor healing potion. It had been so long since he'd used that formulation that he'd all but forgotten it. "I know one better than that, dearheart. Uses Silversage and Golden Sansam. Or maybe one with Felweed. Warm you right up."

He heard the forlorn little sigh from the shivering lump against his chest and curled an arm around her to hold her steady as he sped up to a run. They had to find somewhere to go to ground, build a fire, if they were going to survive the night.

A prayer to the Naaru began to run through his mind and every repetition of the ancient supplication to the Light gathered desperation as he ran on in the deepening dark.


	9. Chapter 9

Part 9

"Hmph. I have been wondering when your Alliance would notice him."

Kill Mechaswarm lifted his head from where he'd bowed it over his knee in respect to Yorg Stormheart, the acknowledged King of the Frostborn. "I take it he's been known to you for some time, sir?"

The pale, blue-skinned Dwarf grunted in agreement and peered at the Gnome out of fathomless black eyes. The blue flames in the sconces around the magnificent black-rock throne room gleamed from the aurichalcum mace that served as his scepter of office as he resettled it on the white wolf fur across his knees. "Aye, he's been known. The giants tell me he cleared out four clans of vrykul, then hollowed out the top of the mountain he's taken for his own. He's not harmed me or mine, I've left him be for the moment. Horde, you say?"

"Yes. He's responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people in Stormwind itself, and uncounted thousands in smaller raids elsewhere for which we suspect he is also to blame," Kill answered. "In this last raid on Stormwind, he captured alive some three dozen women, all of them magic-users. Two of them are of my guild, all of them are citizens of the Alliance and the city I have called my home since my people fled Gnomeregan. And we believe he may have inadvertantly stolen away another of my guild, a Draenei Hunter."

Stormheart grunted a soft laugh at that. "The giants said something about a Wendigo with the hooves of a ram in the valley below that mountain. Could be your man."

Kill nodded. "It could, sir. He is a master hunter, and could easily survive here with nothing to his hand but a knife."

Stormheart lifted his eyes and scanned over the eight of Mechaswarm's guild members who knelt behind their master. "Only these?"

"Yes, oh King. These are among the strongest of my guild, masters of their crafts and veterans long since in the struggle against the Horde. If we can find Wasichu, we will be ten strong."

Stormheart smirked a little down at the Gnome. "You're loquacious, Gnome. Flowery speech may be a boon in the cities, but here in the wilds it's strength and will that allow you to survive."

"Determination not to lose all that we value to the darkness has given all of us that, sir," Kill answered evenly. "We have our own mounts, and our supplies came with us from Ironforge. We need nothing from you or your good folk save your permission to hunt in reasonable amount and travel freely to this valley and the mountain where the Warlock dwells."

Stormheart barked out a laugh at that, then took up the scepter and stood from his throne. His guards moved to flank him as the King motioned Kill and his guildmates to rise. "Your mounts will be useless here. Horses and Elven cats would freeze during the night. We have Eagles enough to serve you. They can take you to the valley below where he dwells."

-O-O-

"That went well," Zarissa said quietly as they unloaded their packs from their horses in the courtyard of Stormheart's fortress keep.

Kill continued latching the safety straps that would hold his Mechanostrider in its folded transport configuration while it was held in storage in Stormheart's stables. He didn't look up at the young Warlock as he worked. "It's in his interest to let us do this, Zari. He gets rid of a problem on his border with no expenditure on his part. If we fail, oh well. Another Southerner raiding party dead on the slopes of a distant valley, and not his problem."

"Maybe. And maybe you're so used to seeing everyone in a cynical light that you can't see a good person anymore without seeing ulterior motives in every word or act," Zarissa said, the slightest hint of reproof in her voice.

"It's kept me alive, Zari. And this fiasco with Owl -" Mechaswarm stopped and shook his head, cursed softly in Gnomish and punched the deactivation code into the Mechanostrider's keypad with more force than was needed. He unlatched the activator lever and yanked it down, and the Mechanostrider's spring-loaded legs jerked into motion. With startling abruptness the robotic ostrich folded itself, the riding torso pulling down into the cradle of the folded legs and the head telescoping down and turning to fit into the riding saddle. Four of the Frostborn dwarves came forward and loaded the Mechanostrider onto a handcart and took it away to the stables.

The guildmates gathered and walked to the keep's small side courtyard where the great Eagles sat waiting on their perches. Two of the Frostborn guides would travel with them to the valley.

Mechaswarm stopped and turned to his guildmates as they prepared to mount the Eagles. "I can sense Wasichu out there. We'll stop for food and water when we can or when we have to. We might be facing blizzard conditions in that valley, and certainly snowglare will be a problem if the sky clears. Whatever we face along the way, let's deal with it as quickly as we can and move on. No grandstanding, no showing off, no lone wolves. No time wasted. Let's get in, find Wasichu, free Jevalyn and Ancasta and the others and get out. Understand?"

The eight murmured their assent as one. The eagles snapped their beaks into the buffetng wind as they turned toward the distant white peak as sharp as a dagger blade against the dawn sky.

-O-O-

The snow exploded outward under the force of Wasichu's kick, his hoof punching through the icicles that had formed on the branches of the giant fir tree under which he and Ancasta had survived the night.

"Don't look out, Snippet. The sun's out, and your eyes would be blinded," he rumbled. With an arm wrapped around the little bundle of Gnome under the furs across his chest, the Draenei climbed out from between the tree's sheltering roots and took his first look around in the glaring whiteness of the day.

"What about you?" came Ancasta's muffled voice.

The Draenei quirked a small grin. "I have a few tricks yet." He closed his eyes and began to chant softly under his breath.

Ancasta felt the shift in his energies, felt the big Draenei's entire form subtly change under her hands where she snuggled against his chest. He seemed to hunch over from the proud bearing he usually affected, his muscles bunched and knotted, and she felt a deep rumble all through his frame. In a breath he lurched forward into a full run, and Ancasta had to hurriedly snake her arms around him as far as she could and clutch tight.

"What - what did you - do?" she gasped out as he ran on.

"Took on the aspect of the beasts," came his answer, distorted by a fierce growl in his voice. "We're going to find Jeva now."

"But the Warlock -"

"Will be DEAD when I'm done with him!" Wasichu snarled, interrupting her. "And the Orc, and the Troll. I'll kill them all!"

Ancasta gulped silently in fear, her blood going colder than the icy chill of the day, at the terrifying rage in his voice. She wondered if this was the real Wasichu, the one only those of higher standing in the Guild had ever seen. She only knew him as a happy drunk, the one the rest of the Guild teased about his lady's man ways and his complete inability to hide his playful lecherousness from the watchful eyes of his sister.

"Just - just be careful," she quavered out finally. "We can't help Jevalyn at all if we get made into soul shards."

The deep-voiced angry growl was the Draenei's only answer.

-O-O-

"So, youngster, come with me. We need to get the suede out of the dyeing tank. Come along, and mind your head. Dwarven ceilings, you know, not meant for one of your stature."

"And well I know it, Master, you can count the bumps on my head," OwlDance said with a faint smile as he turned and rose from where he knelt at the Gnome leatherworking Master's worktable. He was moving to put the heavy pair of leather cutting shears on the tool rack when the ram's horn alerts began to sound throughout Ironforge's cavernous halls.

"What in the world?" Finespindle crowed as OwlDance took the stairs three at a time and raced out the door of the shop.

Finespindle's shop was one of several on the concourse ringing the Great Forge, the heart of Ironforge itself. Across the bright glowing of the sea of molten iron flowing from the smelters, the sounds of a pitched battle were rising and flashes of spellcasting began to flicker on the dark stone walls.

For one horrible, agonizing moment, he thought the black-clad warrior whirling with a red-glowing black sword was BloodThorn. But the hair that fell from under the black helm was a flaming coppery red, not ivory silk. Before he'd even realized it wasn't his betraying lover he traced the sigil in the air and burst into his blurring sprint, racing headlong toward the pitched battle moving slowly toward the doors of the Dwarven King's throne hall.

-O-O-

Zarissa plastered herself to the tree trunk behind which she and Kill were hiding. Just in her sight, she saw Zachius and Leonydus and two of the Jenkins clan also crouching in the dark leeward side of their own trees. Two distinct sets of heavy footsteps crunched through the ice-rimed snow beyond the little copse of trees, and even through the dark goggles their Frostborn guides had given them the two great crystalline figures coruscated like the sun.

She felt the edge of her cloak stirring and looked down to see Kill gesturing in Rogue's hand signs to Zachius and Leonydus. She saw the two nod in understanding and renew their grip on their knives, and suddenly Kill slipped away in utter silence. She flexed her hands in her leather gloves and looked around surreptitiously for her minion.

"Shall I take care of these for you, Mistress?" Azatael rumbled invisibly at her side.

"Shh! Quiet!"

The great red-skinned demonic form chuckled darkly as he faded into sight, and she heard his hooves clomping in the thick icy snow as he shifted. "The thieves do well. I am better."

"I know you are, demonspawn, but -" Zarissa began, then cursed softly under her breath as she heard the roar of the two things and Leonydus's yell. "Come on!"

"As my mistress commands," Azatael rumbled happily and in a step was ahead of her and charging into battle as she began to chant her spell.

Mechaswarm was a small black whirling circle of knives, scoring hit after hit on one of the tall crystalline forms and leaping over it in a tumble to stab it in the back. Stalkingwolf's great wolf snarled madly as the Night Elf raised his magical bow and began to loose mystically charged arrows into the beast Leonydus and Zachius were taking on together. The Jenkins boys ran in with their swords and axes as Kill leaped away, taking over from the Guildmaster as he tumbled out of the fight and landed panting at Zarissa's side. Her minion roared and sliced into one of the crystal men with a vicious swipe of his huge black-glowing axe, and Leonydus had to dive out of the way as the beast was sundered in two and began to fall. In a moment the fight was done and save for the growling of Stalkingwolf's wolf there was only silence and the wind again.

"You fight well," one of the Frostborn guides said as they crept out from behind the tree where they'd taken refuge during the fight.

"Long years experience," Kill said as he caught his breath. "Anyone hurt?"

"Healing," Zachius said dismissively as he dug a vial of a healing potion out of his belt pouch and tossed the cork seal away into the snow.

"Don't go through those so quick," Kill admonished.

"We find Wasichu, he'll make us more," Zachius said with a shrug.

"With what? You noticed this place is a bit cold? About the only thing that grows here is icicles," Kill said with more than a touch of sarcasm in his voice. "And I'm betting he's fresh out of clean vials."

Zachius laughed at that and nodded his assent to his Master.

"You have been lucky," the other Frostborn guide said, nodding. "Your Master is correct, to warn you to save your potions. There are vrykul in this valley, and they hunt in packs of a dozen or more. And the Iron Dwarves - "

Kill suddenly straightened and held up a black-gloved hand imperiously, and they all fell silent.

For long seconds none of them moved or spoke, and then Zarissa thought she heard the familiar clanking, springing tread of a mechanostrider.

"Kill - "

But he was a blur over the snow, racing heedlessly around the side of the icy hill.

The guildmates all looked at each other in surprise, then turned and ran after him.

When they caught up with their sprinting Master they stopped short, for sitting calmly on a white mechanostrider in front of their Master was something none of them could quite frame in words.

A Gnome in form but certainly not in substance sat regarding them with expressionless glowing purple eyes. Its face - indeed, its entire body - was made of a bronze-colored metal beautifully joined with tiny rivets. Its face was round, its mouth nothing but a mesh grill, its feet more like Draenei hooves than Gnomish four-toed feet. Lines of the same purple light traced over its limbs and torso, delineating a suggestion of musculature. At its side hung what looked like a wand or tool of some sort, with a slim lens-like roundel of clear crystal at the end. It seemed entirely focused on Kill and had not noticed the approach of Zarissa and the others at all.

"Designation?" they heard it say in a oddly metallic voice.

"Killem Mechaswarm," Kill responded. "Commander, Gnomeregan Intelligence Command."

The mechanical Gnome's head jerked back and forth for a moment, then it focused on Kill again. "Function?"

"Reconnaissance, Tactical Intelligence," Kill responded again. "Under direct command of Geblin Mekkatorque, Supreme Commander of the Gnomeregan Defense Forces."

The guildmates looked at each other again in surprise at the Gnome King's name. They'd always known their Master as simply the consummate Master Rogue.

The mechanical Gnome tilted its head at Kill's answer for another moment, then nodded jerkily. "Function is sufficient. This unit's function insufficient to remove the Curse. Request Commander Mechaswarm accompany this unit to the Library for purposes of removal."

"There is another Gnome imprisoned in this area," Kill said as it started to turn its mechanostrider. "Possibly others. We are searching for her and them. We suspect she has been taken by the occupant of the fortress at the top of the mountain north-northwest of our position."

The mechanical Gnome stopped, turned back and tilted its head again for a moment. "Designation?"

"Ancasta Copperbolt."

"Function?"

"Infantry Trainee, Neuromagical," Kill answered. "She is under my command."

The mechanical Gnome's purple glowing eyes blinked twice. "Designated unit within one thousand meters of current position. A unit class Draenei also at that position."

"Wasichu?" Leonydus said quietly.

Kill nodded. "I think so. Mechagnome, designation?"

"This unit designated TopSprocket. Function Reconnaisance, Sentry."

"TopSprocket, take us to the unit designated Ancasta Copperbolt," Kill said, obvious tension in his voice.

The mechanical Gnome blinked its purple eyes again, then nodded jerkily. "At your command, Commander. Request follow."

-O-O-

"What is that thing?" Zachius said to Zarissa as they ran, following their improbable mechanical guide over the sharp ridges of wind-sculpted ice.

"I don't know," she answered breathlessly. The air was so cold it stabbed like a knife into her lungs as she ran, and she wondered if Azatael could be persuaded to carry her, then decided against it. He might get ideas...

The sounds of roaring Wendigos and the dark purple darts of Arcane Missiles met them as they ran the last hundred meters and burst through the trees to a sight of chaos.

Wasichu roared as he charged at the three Wendigos converging on him, his rough handmade bow in pieces in the snow behind him, nothing in his hands but a frozen tree branch. Two sheep wandered around, running frantically from the fight while the Arcane Missiles arrowed out from the snow-frosted branches of the giant fir behind the enraged Draenei. As they watched the Wendigo hit by the Arcane Missiles reached the tree and charged at the branches with a titanic roar, sending snow and icicles flying everywhere. They saw a tiny body leap out of the tree and dash out toward the Draenei, the flame red hair distinct against the blinding white of the snow.

"I got it! I got it!" Ancasta shrieked in excitement as she reached him. She skidded around on the ice at his side, thrust blue-glowing hands over her head, and suddenly glowing blue balls of ice began to rain down all around her from out of a clear sky. "Get'em! Get the sheep! I got the rest!"

"GO!" Mechaswarm bellowed, and the guildmates all raced forward toward their friends.

-O-O-

"Did you see? I got'em! I got the Wendigos! I did it! I did it!"

"We saw you, young one," Stalkingwolf said soothingly as he dug through his pack for the old patched cloak he often used as a raincloak. The young Gnome mage was fairly hopping up and down with overexcitement even while her teeth chattered and she shivered violently in the sub-zero temperatures. Her eyes were red and tears were frozen on her face, and he doubted she could see from snowblindness. One of the Frostborn guides, Gavin Nightsong, came to his side with a pair of the dark goggles. "Look here, we have new friends in the land of the Frostborn. This is good Master Gavin. His people use these dark eyeshades in order to see when the snow is blinding."

"Oh! I'm all right! Do you have any Silverleaf and Peacebloom? Can we make a fire? I can make my healing potions, I can - it'll fix this! Wasa! Do you have any vials? I keep meaning to look around the trees - Have you seen any Peacebloom? It's white, usually it's out in the middle of a field - "

"Let me handle this," Mechaswarm said quietly as he came to Stalkingwolf's side. He took the goggles from the Frostborn guide with a nod of thanks, then took Ancasta's flailing hand. "Anca. Come with me."

"Oh! Where's Owl? Did you make him go out scouting? Where is he? I knew he'd come get us! I told Jevalyn - "

Zarissa, Zachius and Leonydus had to bite their lips to keep from bursting out laughing as the Guild Master all but towed the shivering, hyperactive young Gnome girl away from the group and into the shadows under one of the fir trees.

"Kids," Zachius said shortly.

"Kill told me she hero-worships Owl," Zarissa said with a smile. "I wonder if - "

"I don't think the little one knew about BloodThorn," Stalkingwolf said as he got to his feet and shook out the cloak. "I don't know what we'll do for the little one, but this will be a help. Wasichu, my friend! I am glad to find you whole and well. This won't cover all of you but you know how Zari likes your oddly-jointed knees."

"Hey!" Zarissa protested as the big Draenei chuckled weakly and let the Night Elf drape the old cloak around his shoulders. The bear and wolf pelts he'd been using to keep warm were in tatters now, as were the ragged remains of his fine velvet coat and pants.

"How did you find us?" Wasichu asked wearily.

"Kill followed his nose," Zarissa answered.

"He what?"

-O-O-

"Why is everyone so afraid of Northrend? It's just got Wendigos and - and - we've got those at Mount Ratchet, my grandfather - "

Kill stopped and whirled around to grab the girl by her shivering shoulders. "What was that I just saw out there, Copperbolt?"

"Huh? What? Me fighting!" Ancasta yelled back. "Me whacking the poop out of three Wendigos! All at once! I owned'em! And I sheeped two before you even got here!"

Kill closed his eyes, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he opened his eyes and fixed her with a hard glare. "Ancasta Copperbolt, you are - you are - "

"And before that, I ran away from a bunch of Orcs and jumped off the wall and Frostbolted the snow and made an avalanche to carry me away! And before that, I - " She stopped abruptly in mid-yell, stood looking at him in shock for two silent seconds, then suddenly snapped her mouth shut and threw herself into his arms.

Taken completely off guard, Kill stood for all of five seconds in rigid surprise as she shivered and sobbed against his leather-clad shoulder, then relaxed by degrees and put his arms around her. "Now what?" he muttered into the red hair under his cheek. "You done with the histrionics, Copperbolt, or is this just round two?"

"I - I - there was - a girl. Another Gnome. She - she was - a Warlock," Ancasta quavered out against his shoulder. "She was - going to - turn me into a Soul Shard - and - and - I - she - I - killed her."

Kill took another deep breath and reached back for the edge of the fur-lined cloak he wore, threw a fold of it around her as she clung to him. "Your age?"

Ancasta nodded and sniffled.

"You know her name?"

"Twinkle Screwberry," Ancasta whispered. "She said her parents were hardware merchants - "

"No they weren't," Kill muttered against the top of her head. "They were traitors."

"They - what? In Gnomeregan?"

"Commander Mechaswarm," came a metallic voice out of the shadows a few feet away. The mechagnome came forward with soft whirs of moving servomotors and stopped when it saw Ancasta turn in Mechaswarm's arms to peer at it in shocked awe. The mechagnome's glowing eyes blinked twice, then its attention went to Kill. "This unit comprehends now urgency to reacquire Trainee Copperbolt. Biocompatibility at ninety percent."

"What is that?" Ancasta said in a small voice.

"Would you believe one of our ancestors?" Kill asked as he moved her around to his side.

"Correct. Request return to Library. This unit insufficient in function to remove Curse." TopSprocket's head jerked slightly in a sort of nod. "Units Mechaswarm and Copperbolt must be freed from the Curse to add capabilities to Mechagnome skill set. Biocompatibility ninety percent. Recombination will produce exceptional succeeding units."

"No. Not at present time, if ever," Mechaswarm growled. "TopSprocket, return to your sentry patrol. Dismissed."

The mechagnome paused for a beat, then turned slowly and paced out from under the fir tree's branches. A moment later, the sound of its mechanostrider's ignition sequence rent the air.

"A strider? That thing has a strider?" Ancasta said in disbelief. She started forward a step but Kill pulled her back against his side.

"Don't. Let it go. What's important here is Jevalyn and the others in that fortress," Kill said flatly. "Priorities. And the first of those is - damn it, girl, what the hell were you thinking? If that had been a Storm Giant you charged at you'd be dead!"

Ancasta turned back around under the warm wing of the black wool cloak and opened her mouth to yell back at him.

But the lines of pain and fear she saw on his face stopped her cold.

Then she remembered the Warlock. And that Jevalyn might already be dead.

"Priorities," she answered back. She sniffled back the last of her tears for Twinkle, scrubbed the sleeve of her robe over her face to banish the tear tracks. "I overheard a conversation between the Warlock, an Orc and a Troll. The Warlock's name is Cyridon. He's working for another mage that he called the Ascendant. He captured not just us from the Cathedral but he's also caught at least a dozen Horde too, all women and magic-users. He intends to use us all to make Soul Shards, and is planning to attack Stormwind and Ironforge and Theramore and some Horde cities to capture more people to use the same way. He's working with an Orc and a Troll named Xener'khan..."


	10. Chapter 10

Part 10

"Is that it?"

"Uh-huh," Ancasta said as she and Kill peered through the snowy branches at the top of the mountain and the fortress built into its summit. "You can see where my avalanche was, where all the snow was disturbed. That's the wall I jumped off of."

Kill clenched his jaw hard to keep himself from saying something the impressionable young Mage might pick up. The drop from the top of the crenellated wall to the point where the snow had obviously fallen away was at least a hundred feet. "No more snow-dives. Ever. Understand, Copperbolt?"

Ancasta snorted shortly and her teeth started chattering. "Used to do it all the time back home."

"I don't want to have to explain to your parents the one time your technique goes off," he muttered.

"Know how to come back," Ancasta said.

Kill humphed at that and reached up to unsnap his cloak clasp, slid the fur-lined cloak off and around her shoulders. "You freeze solid out here, the Mechagnomes will pick you up, thaw you out, and turn you into a robot."

"Robot?" Ancasta asked as she clutched the cloak around her. "What about you?" she asked as he prepared to climb down out of the tree.

Kill looked back at her and grinned a little. "Looks like I've got a climb ahead of me. It'll get in the way. What's the matter, black leather too manly for your girly-girl sensibilities?"

"Girly-girl? Me? I kill Wendigos for a living!" Ancasta said with a scowl.

Kill laughed at that. "You're going to need that cloak for armor then. For when they sneak up on your back."

Ancasta sniffed at that. "I've got Owl for that. Anything gets past him deserves what it gets."

Kill smiled, then tweaked her ear. "Ravenholdt's going to love that when he gets summoned for his challenges. I'll have to tell Fahrad the boy now comes with a little Gnome girl attached."

"Little? Hello, Kettle, let me introduce you to Pot!" Ancasta almost yelped. "You're only three inches taller than me!"

"Well for us that's like dog years, isn't it?" Kill teased.

"A Gnomish giant is a contradiction in terms!" Ancasta yelled after him as he began to swing down out of the tree, laughing all the while.

"I should have known the size issue would come up by now," Zarissa said with a straight face as Kill dropped down to the snow beside her.

"Served its purpose," Kill said with a shrug. "She's warm now."

"Oh, that could be taken in so many, many ways," Zarissa said with a smirk as he ran to where Zachius and Leonydus were waiting for him. Zarissa watched him go, then turned to watch as Wasichu caught the young Mage as she dropped out of the tree and into his arms. She hadn't been resident in Stormwind for several months and had missed Ancasta's arrival, but it seemed the girl had made a place for herself in a lot of people's lives. Zarissa thought on hearing that the girl was only an Apprentice that she'd be little more than the Guild mascot. Maybe that was true to some extent, but she clearly had potential and the willingness to risk herself in battle. Zarissa had known Warlocks in her father's school who flatly refused to risk their own necks in combat, casting their spells and commnding their minions from nowhere near the scene of the action.

"The day is passing," one of the Frostborn guides said as the three Rogues prepared to leave on their scouting mission.

"That it is," Kill answered. He looked around at his Guildmates. "Wait half an hour and then start making a ruckus. Draw their forces out and keep them engaged. Try to make enough of a stink to get this Warlock Cyridon involved personally."

"Won't be hard," Zarissa said. "I could challenge him."

"Too risky," Kill said, shaking his head. "Offer to join up."

Zarissa snorted an involuntary laugh at that. "Join up? That's not how my kind does such things, Boss. He'd be far more suspicious of me offering an alliance than challenging him."

Kill fixed her with a steady glare. "If you do, you need to win."

Zarissa nodded shortly. "I intend to."

"And after, Master?" Stalkingwolf asked.

"Circle back. There's only one path up the mountain, and it's only wide enough for one person at a time. Sheer drop off if anyone falls," Kill said. "By that time, we should have Jevalyn and the others free, and we'll meet you at the courtyard gate. At which time, I hope, someone will be able to port us all back home."

"Otherwise, we fight our way out," Leonydus muttered.

-O-O-

Ironforge's perpetual cavern gloom was made bright as day by the convulsing light and thunderous roar of dozens of spells aimed at the black-clad Death Knight. The flash of whirling blades, the cries of the Dwarven guardsmen as they leaped into battle to defend their King, the snarls and yowls of hunting cats and wolves, the twang of bowstrings and thunk of arrows, all a violent confusion that OwlDance could not sort out. But the advantage was that all that light made for very deep shadows. And that was what he knew how to use.

He slipped around the throng along the wall in the corner just shy of King Magni's throne room door - undoubtedly the King's guardsmen were closed about him like a turtle's shell by now. The Death Knight had come in through the shortcut passage from the main gates, the shortest path even though it passed before the Bank and Auction House and the perpetual crowds there. He had finally been waylaid here, just before the King's throne room. No fool he, for he had backed himself as close to the wall as was safe, given the reach of his great red-glowing broadsword.

And those few feet of space in the shadows were all Owl needed.

Maybe this would make up, at least a little, for BloodThorn. Maybe he could still prove to his Master he was worth training, if he proved he wasn't too skittish to battle the Horde.

He gripped his daggers, focused on the articulated seams between the plates of the iron breastplate, and leaped upon the black armored Knight.

-O-O-

"Bring torches!" Sorlan Anvilspur called as he surveyed the pile of bodies half a dozen deep in the blood-drenched corner of the cavern. "By the Allfather's Hand, what a mess! But we got'im! Timli, help me here, let's get all these good brave folk sorted out so they don't wake in a pile of blood and gore. And so we can string the damned Blood Elf up by his ears and gut him like the maggot-filth he is! We'll give the King first crack at'im, shall we?"

In moments the bodies of the defenders had been separated, and a few had begun to wake from death.

So it was a small crowd of dazed, incredulous onlookers who realized that at the bottom of the pile lay an ebony-haired Night Elf in fine purple and gray leather - with his hands still clenched around the twin daggers embedded deep in the Death Knight's body through the seams between the plates of armor.

"A Rogue?" one of the revived Mages asked dazedly. "And with daggers, of all things?"

Anvilspur threw back his head and laughed. "Aye, daggers! Timli, run and tell the King we have a hero to feast with this night! A Rogue, by the Great Forge! All that firepower and it was an Elven lad with a pair of daggers that did'em in!"

-O-O-

Jevalyn looked up and around in the darkness as she heard the Orc guards approaching, and with them rapid-fire Draenei profanity in a strident young female voice.

"Throw the little bitch in with the others!" the head guard commanded with a snarl. "Hopefully Master Cyridon won't notice we lost one if the numbers are the same."

The door of the communal holding cell scraped open with a screech of metal on stone, and the struggling form of a young Draenei girl was flung inside. She fell among them, still cursing, and wrenched herself away from the two Humans she landed on to fling herself at the bars of the closing door.

Jevalyn scrambled up to her knees and called out in Draenei to her as two of the Orcs stabbed her brutally with their spears, the thunks into her shoulder and stomach sickening as she gasped and gurgled out her breath at the impact and fell limp to the floor. The Orcs laughed uproariously at this and slammed the cell door shut and stalked back up the corridor and out of sight.

"Don't touch her! Let me!" Jevalyn said in Common to the Night Elf priestess and the Human Mage who immediately moved to the girl. She hurried to the girl's side, put her hands on her wounds and began to invoke the Naaru. The bright golden light of the holy power enveloped Jevalyn and the young Draenei girl both, and the wounds began to knit under Jevalyn's hands. By the time her fervent chant ended the girl's eyes drifted open.

"Do you speak the Common tongue?" she asked in their language as she helped the girl sit up.

"I - a little," the girl said haltingly, with a thick Draenei accent. "Not very good."

Jevalyn nodded. "Your name?" she asked in Common, then repeated it in Draenei.

"_A'na_. Understand," the girl said, her voice still rough as she clutched at her stomach and tried to breath deeply. "I name Skyamaalu." She continued in Dranei, thanking Jevalyn for the Gift of the Naaru chant that had healed her wounds. Then she switched back to her sketchy Common. "I Shaman. To Astranaar, order of the Prophet."

Jevalyn nodded her understanding. The Prophet Velen had ordered the younger Shaman to journey to Astranaar on some errand, probably delivering messages or retrieving something of need. The younger Shaman were often given such duties, when they were not aiding to help heal those still being revived from the suspension pods. "You were caught by the Horde?" she asked, then repeated it in Draenei.

Skyamaalu looked bewildered at that. "Hordth?" she asked, confused.

"Horde," Jevalyn corrected, speaking slowly so that the girl could comprehend the pronunciation. She explained that the Blood Elves near Blood Watch were of the Horde, as were the Orcs, Trolls, and sometimes Goblins, and that they were sworn enemies of the Alliance for various reasons.

Skyamaalu shook her head slowly. "Na. No. Little, green - " She stopped, then used her hands to shape the suggestion of large ears. Then held her hand up to indicate a small size.

"A Goblin?" Jevalyn asked, and asked if it had a long nose in Draenei. Skyamaalu nodded. "You were captured by a Goblin?"

Skyamaalu shook her head, then indicated she'd become caught in some sort of net, possibly originally set to capture bears. She'd been trying to fight her way out of it when something hit her on the head and knocked her unconscious. When she'd wakened, she'd been tied hand and foot and a Blood Elf in fantastical clothing was sneering down at her with a black stone knife in his hand. Then she'd been hauled up, untied, and dragged off to a troop of Orc guards and a glowing portal.

"And here," she concluded, gesturing around her.

Jevalyn nodded and sat back on her hooves. "And as helpless as the rest of us." She switched back to Draenei to ask if her Totem amulets had been taken. Skyamaalu's frightened look told her the girl had only just realized her amulets were gone.

"Ha! The girl was sucker-punched by a Goblin," came the pleased crackle from the Goblin in the cell across the corridor. "Well well. So you aliens are as vulnerable to a good old fashioned whack on the head as any of us."

"And so are you," Jevalyn called out calmly. She pushed to her feet and sank her awareness within herself. The Gift of the Naaru still worked. Her Ghost Wolf form may still as well, since it did not require a totem. She began to chant the spell softly and in a moment her form melted into the black shadow form of the Wolf.

But she could not pass beyond the bars of the cell.

"We're all trapped, girl," the Goblin cackled out of the darkness. "Except for those little Gnome girls. They got through just fine. Probably dead now, or making pretty paperweights on Lord Cyridon's desk as Soul Shards."

Jevalyn broke the spell and stayed at the bars, letting the cold stone chill her forehead as she stood there, her eyes closed, praying to the Naaru for Ancasta's safe return.

"Jeva? Stand away," said a low voice at her side.

Jevalyn startled badly and leaped back as a quiet scratching sounded right where she had been standing. And then a familiar small, black-clad form was standing there, fading into sight.

"Master?"

Kill glanced up at her and grinned. "Your brother's at the foot of the mountain, about ready to chew through an icicle. I need you to go calm him down before he goes out picking fights with Storm Giants."

Jevalyn stood there gaping at her Guild Master for several long seconds, then fell to her knees as the lock popped open and the cell door slid aside.

"Ladies, if you'll follow me, I'd be happy to escort you all out of this dreary dungeon," Kill said with a smirk and an inviting flourish of one hand.

Then he darted inside and Jevalyn sobbed with joy as he jumped up and into her arms.

"Hey! Gnome! What about us?" the Goblin woman warbled as they began to vacate the cell. The bars of the cell across the corridor were suddenly full of peering eyes and hands clutching at the stone. "Those two little girls, I can take you to them. I know where Cyridon's got'em locked up."

Kill snorted a mirthless laugh at that. "Sure you do. One of them is sucking up to Cyridon right now, as only a second-generation traitor knows how. The other is at the foot of this mountain, free as a bird, wrapped up in my cloak and itching for a fight with another Wendigo. As for letting you all free - " His hard, glittering black eyes connected with the Blood Elf sorceress, and all expression fell from his face. "Not a chance in hell. If your own people don't care enough about you to rescue you, that's your own problem."

"You'll pay for this, Gnome!" the Blood Elf sorceress screamed after them.

But Kill didn't hear.

-O-O-

"Okay, so we're agreed," Kill heard a young Gnomish voice say as he slipped silent as a shadow to the door of Cyridon's cavern throne chamber. "You port me back to Theramore. I'll worm my way into Gadgetzan, by the time you get there I'll be able to hand it over to you on a platter."

"For such a small person you obviously think big," Cyridon said in a droll voice.

Twinkle snorted at that. "Gadgetzan is strategic. You get in good with the Goblins, that's another source of good coin. It's Kalimdor, but just as many Horde go through there as Alliance. The kinds of people no one cares about. It's the end of the world. It's a good source of souls to harvest, not to mention a potential source of mercenary troops."

Kill scowled, clenched his jaw hard to keep from leaping out of concealment and putting an end to the girl right then and there. Again. Ancasta might be glad she hadn't killed the other girl permanently, but now -

"And after you send your troops in, I'm leaving," Twinkle snarled. "I got a score to settle."

"This other Gnome child, what's her name again?" Cyridon asked lazily.

Kill slipped inside the room and faded into sight. "Her name is Ancasta Copperbolt, apprentice to Mistress Jennea Cannon of the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences. And someday in the future, Twinkle Screwberry, you're going to realize she outclasses you ten to one."

Twinkle began to whirl toward the voice but pitched forward, gurgling on her own blood. Embedded deep in her back was a black steel throwing stilleto with the crest of Gnomeregan embossed on the pommel.

Cyridon leaped to his feet, but the Gnome Rogue had vanished again.

"You're going to need better tools than that to destroy the Alliance, Warlock," Kill's voice said, seemingly out of the air itself. Cyridon whirled around, seeking the source. "Oh, and by the way - checkmate."

Zachius, Leonydus and Kill all faded into blurring sight as they leaped upon the Warlock and began their attack.

-O-O-

Zarissa stood at the top of the crenellated fortress wall and cursed softly. The courtyard was full of Orcs and her Guildmates, the Jenkins boys and StalkingWolf and Wasichu using a rifle one of the Frostborn guides had loaned him.

"Look! There's the Troll!" Ancasta said suddenly at her side and Zarissa turned to see a tall, gangly, blue-skinned form sneaking from one bit of cover to another at the other side of the courtyard in front of the stables. "Can you get him from here? Want me to help?"

"I can get him, I want you to keep watch over there at the guard tower," she said, gently shooing the little Gnome toward the open door of the abandoned guard post. "One of those Orcs might get the bright idea to come up here with a bow. If they do, they're all yours."

"Yeah!" Ancasta said enthusiastically and darted off to stand guard at the door, Kill's black cloak flapping behind her in the wind.

Zarissa smiled after her, then stepped forward and sighted on the Troll. "Azatael? If you'll get the blue gentleman's attention? Introduce us, please."

"With pleasure, Mistress," the minion purred, and roared as he raced to engage their prey.

-O-O-

The throne room was awash in blood, the Warlock's magical armor peeled and pried aside and ruptured to reveal great gaping fatal wounds. Leonydus unslung his axe as Zachius shoved the body into the proper position, and with one swing of the blade the head rolled free trailed by the long golden hair, sightless eyes still bulging.

"Go. Take that outside and end the fight," Kill said shortly as his two fellow Rogues hurried to down healing potions. "Get Zarissa and Jevalyn and bring them here, and that Night Elf priestess I saw with the prisoners. I'm going to look for all their magical weapons and amulets, I might need them. And go hide that somewhere it can't get out of," he snarled at last, nudging Twinkle Screwberry's dead body with a toe. "I don't want Ancasta seeing this little bitch again."

"Right," Leonydus said shortly. "Good day's work, Boss."

"Let's keep it that way, gentlemen," Kill said with a little smirk. He vanished as the two of them left, Cyridon's head dangling from Leonydus's hand.

-O-O-

"Oh look, a matching set," Zarissa said with false gaiety as Leonydus came out of the fortress's main door. She sauntered up to the two of them swinging the Troll's head by its blue-green braids. "So, boys, want to trade? Or looking to buy?"

"Where's the Orc?" Zachius said, his eyes scanning the knots where the Jenkins boys, StalkingWolf and Wasichu were still battling a dozen or more Orcs. "The Orc leader. Where is he?"

Zarissa almost said, "Seen one Orc, you've seen them all," but then stopped when she realized all those still fighting or dead on the ground were only guards.

"Surrender, Alliance dogs!" came the roar from atop the wall. "Surrender now, or the little girl dies in my hands!"

Zarissa looked up and felt rage color her vision red. For the Orc leader stood atop the guard walk, and Ancasta was struggling in his hands.

"Why - does - everyone - always - call - me - LITTLE?" Ancasta ground out amidst her struggles. A flash of white light burst from her hands, and with an odd schlooping sound the Orc holding her suddenly vanished.

"Anca?" Jevalyn screamed out from the courtyard.

A very quiet but frantic "BAAAA!" came from on top of the wall.

"Don't call me LITTLE!" A moment later Ancasta climbed up on top of the crenelatted wall and glared down at them all. "And that goes for the rest of you too!"

Silence fell for several seconds, and then Zachius stepped forward, nodded up to her. "Yes ma'am. I'll remember."

"So will I," Zarissa agreed.

Very quietly, Azatael chuckled.


	11. Chapter 11 Epilogue

Part 11

Epilogue

Four days later, an exhausted group of adventurers straggled onto the docks at Menethil Harbor.

"Lady MistBlade," Kill said wearily from atop his Mechanostrider as the ship turned with swift grace into the dock. The priestess of Elune smiled gently at the sight of the disheveled Guild Master, Ancasta riding pillion behind him all but asleep on his shoulder.

"Master Mechaswarm," she responded and nodded regally. "It will be a long journey home for FarShine and myself. But at least we are returning home, thanks to your Guild."

Kill nodded. "I was wondering - my apprentice is of your people. His grandmother - "

She smiled again and held up a hand to silence him. "Her opinions are held by the majority of my folk, some more strongly than others. While I myself do not think such a life is wise, I am not so closed-minded as to think it does not happen at all. I think for his sake, and for his peace of mind, that OwlDance should stay away from Teldrassil for the time being. Or if he returns, that he does so quietly and without alerting the Circle to his presence."

Kill cleared his throat and looked away. "That's going to be a problem, considering his cousin brought him a Frostsaber token."

MistBlade looked surprised at that, her fine white eyebrows rising briefly. "I see. In that case, perhaps he should arrive in the company of others. Perhaps the youngster there who leans upon you. Perhaps yourself."

"Owl?" Ancasta murmured at Kill's shoulder, and she stirred enough to look up at the Elven priestess. "Is he here?"

Kill smiled and shrugged lightly to jostle her head. "No. But you need to wake up, it's time to get on the Griffins."

Ancasta yawned and turned her face to hide against his leather-clad shoulder. "*yawn* -just go through Loch Modan, let me sleep some more..."

MistBlade chuckled softly and glided off the ship's gangplank to the dock.

Kill turned his Mechanostrider to survey his weary Guildmates and the two dozen or so former prisoners who had come with them from Northrend. Some had already left them for points north of Menethil to find their own way home. Wasichu and Jevalyn were leaving them here to board the boat to Theremore with Skyamaalu, to warn Lady Jaina to be on the alert for the Ascendant's plans and to escort the younger Shaman home to Azuremyst. But the rest of them were heading to Ironforge and then home to Stormwind.

The Griffins were eager to fly, and within minutes they were ascending the mountainsides into the eternal snows of Dun Morogh, and on their way home.

-O-O-

There seemed to be a party taking place on the Griffin platform on the concourse of Ironforge, so many people crowding the landing platform that Kill was worried they wouldn't have anywhere to land.

The Griffin chuckled at this. "Fear not, Guildmaster. My brethren and I are far too skilled to let a little thing like crowding cause a problem." And with that, the Griffin seemed to turn sideways in the air, drop twenty feet straight down, and landed in a spot Kill was certain was full of people not half a second before.

Kill turned to help Ancasta down from the Griffin's back before sliding down off the muscled, gold-furred shoulders. "Never let anyone tell you you're not skilled," he murmured in thanks to the great beast, who laughed heartily before he launched himself toward the aerial tunnel high in the cavern wall.

"Master!" Owl called out, distinctly visible over the throng of Humans, Dwarves and Draenei. He waved to them and began to weave through the crowd toward his teacher.

Ancasta gave a little shriek of delight as OwlDance reached them and scooped them both up in his arms in an enthusiastic hug. "Master! Anca! You'll never guess what happened! I did it! I killed a Horde! Me! I killed a Death Knight!"

"I sheeped an Orc!" Ancasta countered, "And killed three Wendigos! And made an avalanche, and snuck out of this big black fortress on top of a mountain, and - "

"And you're both a couple of children that need a spanking!" Kill interjected. He reached up and tugged on the nearest long ear and OwlDance winced.

"Put us down, boy," Kill growled softly, then tugged gently on a long lock of the black hair to take the sting out of his words.

"Yes, Master."

"And once we catch up on our sleep, you've got an assignment."

Owl blinked, clearly startled at that. "I do, Master?"

"Yes you do. Your cousin brought you a Frostsaber token. You are going home to Teldrassil to try for a Frostsaber." Kill gave him a steady look as Owl's face fell. "You've just eliminated a Horde, boy. For better or worse, you're a player in this vast game now. There's a world out there that you will conquer, one province at a time. And you will do it far more efficiently with a means of transport faster than your own two feet."

Owl squirmed under the steady regard. "But Master - "

"Ancasta will go with you," Kill went on. "As moral support."

"As moral - " Owl stopped, then turned to look at Ancasta questioningly. "Master?"

"You just killed a Death Knight and you're still afraid of your grandmother?" Kill asked.

"Not afraid, per se, Master," Owl said in a subdued voice.

Kill's frown turned sour. "You seek approval from all the wrong people, boy."

Owl drew himself up and pinned his Master with a raised eyebrow. "Not all the wrong people. Unless you think your opinion is worth nothing, Master."

Kill smirked at that and shook his head. "Too clever. Just not in the right ways. Sometimes you're as big and dumb as an Ogre, and I wonder why I put up with you. I could have some sensible Gnome for an apprentice. Someone who could read and do my paperwork. What I got was you."

"Hey! You got us both!" Ancasta reminded him with a pout. "And I can read! And do your paperwork!"

Kill snorted at that. "You'd read it, and you'd remember it. And you'd go asking awkward questions. You're another one that's too clever. I'm eighty-two years old, girly, and not one gray hair yet. With you two, I'll be white-haired in a year."

The Elf and the Gnome gave him almost identical considering looks.

"I think you'd look good with white hair," Ancasta said.

OwlDance nodded sagely. "Very distinguished."

Kill gaped at them, then spluttered. "Out! Out of my sight!"

The Elf scooped Ancasta up in one arm and fled up the concourse, their giggles sounding from the crowd as Kill followed at a more sedate, weary pace.

It was good to be home.

The End


End file.
